[image error]

“Come on, stop feeding me this bullshit,” Dominic said.

“No bullshit, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Darius responded.

“Come on.”

“What?”

“How long have we been working together?”

“Going on ten years now.”

“And how long have we been meeting for drinks like this?”

Darius frowned and looked down at his hands, trying to remember. “At least five years. Pizza and beer, every Wednesday.”

“And after all of that, you still can’t bring yourself to trust me? Is that really what you’re saying?”

“It’s got nothing to do with trust, I don’t know—”

“Darius.”

“Seriously, I don’t know—”

“Darius!”

They had reached the point where each was starting to realize that the argument was actually more serious than it had seemed at first. Dominic has started it almost as a joke, but Darius’ reaction was clearly making him upset.

“Okay,” Darius said as he placed the pint glass down on the table. “Just explain what’s bothering you.”

“I know something isn’t right with you. I’ve seen all of the signs, everything you think no one is noticing because no one is watching.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

Dominic rolled his eyes and looked away for a moment. “Don’t make me say it, all right? It makes me sound like a loony. I need to hear you say it.”

“Say what?”

“Darius, for fuck’s sake.”

“I really don’t—”

“All right, I’ll tell you what I’ve been seeing, and you can try to explain it. Last week, I saw you trip and spill an entire pot of hot coffee, all over your arm.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, ‘and’? I would have screamed my damn head off. You didn’t even make a sound. I thought maybe you just have a high pain tolerance, but your skin didn’t even look burned.”

“Wait, I remember that now, the water wasn’t even—”

“Don’t insult me. I watched you take it off of the burner, right after the brew cycle ended. I could see the steam coming off of it.”

“Okay, I think you’re a little off in your recollection, but okay. What else?”

“Just last week. I saw that forklift—”

“Now hold on.”

“No. I know what you told everyone, that you had gotten out of the way, just in time, but I saw the thing back up over your foot. I watched your foot vanish underneath the wheel, and you acted like you didn’t even notice it.”

Darius was already shaking his head. “You’re imagining things. There’s no way I could have—”

“I know there’s no way you could have done that. That’s kind of my point, though. Where are you from, Darius?”

“What? You know that I’m from Baltimore.”

Dominic shook his head. “Nope. I checked you out”

“You checked me out? What kind of a friend does something like that?”

“I don’t know. What kind of a friend keeps something like this to himself? I did a couple of those Internet background searches. No record of anyone with your name in the greater Baltimore area. No one in Maryland, no one in Vermont. Pretty much the entire east coast. Nothing.”

“And why would you trust the Internet?”

“That’s your defense?”

“I don’t need to defend myself, I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Maybe not yet.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Where do you really come from, Darius?”

The two men stared at each other, not conceding an inch in either direction. Darius tugged at his ear with an irritated air about him, as if he was trying to figure out the fastest way out of this argument.

“What do you expect me to say?” he finally asked.

“The truth would be refreshing.”

“Is that what you really want?”

“Yes!”

“Because I think you just want me to tell you whatever you want to hear and wrap it up in a bow, as if it was the truth.”

“I can’t do anything about that,” Dominic said.

“So what is it that you intend to do?” Darius asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m assuming that this confrontation is some kind of preamble to a threat, or demand of some kind. Can we just skip ahead to that part?”

“I just want you to look me in the eyes and tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

Dominic slammed his glass down on the table and slid his untouched food to the side so that he could lean in closer to speak, hissing the response at Darius. “I don’t think you’re human.”

The proclamation stopped the conversation cold. Darius stared, as his mouth slowly dropped open, so taken aback that even he didn’t know how to respond.

“You…do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it not true.”

“Well, actually it—”

“I actually know for a fact that you aren’t human. In fact, it was the reason why I was sent here.”

Darius frowned, clearly not getting it.

“I’ll give you credit, you’ve stuck to your cover story, but that doesn’t change the gross errors you’ve been making as of late.”

“What the hell are you—”

“Darius, Sector Command received reports that you were being sloppy, putting yourself into a position to be discovered. Naturally, we couldn’t have that so they sent me, and instructed me to use this body, in order to evaluate your performance here.”

Darius’ eyes went so wide at the shock of the revelation that he didn’t even see Dominic lean forward and bring the blade around, into the base of his neck. He stiffened in his seat and after several convulsions, collapsed to the side onto the seat of their booth.

Dominic stood up and bent down to retrieve the knife. He wiped the blade clean with his handkerchief as he looked down at the body.

“They sent me to clean up your mess.”

[image error]