Symbiota Sapiens

Chapter 12

Rom was able to put his exit strategy into motion very quickly.

Apparently he'd been preparing for a quick departure for a while now. A quick trip to his computer and a twelve key combination initiated an untraceable dump of anything abnormal.

Another combination left behind enough traces of mischief to hopefully throw his pursuers off his scent.

Rom Wilson, the troubled but gifted orphan boy, would turn out to have a secret life in cyberspace as the hacker "Vox".

Those who looked at these things would find that "Vox" was responsible for a great deal of mischief on the internet. Including an ongoing campaign to uncover what he believed was a secret society of humanoid aliens taking over human infrastructure a la "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers".

His diaries, once cracked (if not by police, then by any curious immortals) would detail that he was both brilliant and deranged - and not far off the truth.

"This way, the police will think I'm a nut and not look any farther. Whatever's left of Aeternis, and this "godfather" immortal, will figure I'm a mortal who uncovered a bit of the truth but didn't understand it - and at worst assume some other immortals had me killed because I was poking my nose where it didn't belong. And hopefully, breathe a sigh of relief that someone else took care of the problem." Rom explained.

That was true. One thing I had no doubt of - everyone would surely believe Rom was dead. He'd gone to great lengths to provide them with a body.

Julian had watched, with a green face, while Rom and I used our enhanced strength to rapidly uncover the cadaver in his backyard. The remains of the little home-made headstone "Emma Wilder, my beautiful bride, your passing leaves a broken hulk of a man" were barely legible, cracked into three pieces.

Rom said he'd researched the story when he first moved into the house and found the decrepit monument. James Wilder, the husband, had been committed to an insane asylum after a bloody rampage through a nearby hospital. Apparently she'd died of cancer, diagnosed too late.

"How the hell are they going to think this is you? I mean, she's a girl." Julian had asked.

"One of my abilities. I'm a whiz at manipulating DNA. I built a bacteria to alter the body almost a year ago, ‘she's’ a ‘he’, now."

The body turned out to be well preserved - and significantly altered from the beautiful bride described in the headstone. The face was unmistakably Rom's.

"Kind of spooky." I verbalized.

"Yeah." Julian and Rom spoke together, staring at it.

Once the ground was put carefully back into place, we moved the cadaver into the trunk of our stolen car, wrapping it in tarp to avoid fiber traces and the like. We took the body to an abandoned water tower, put Rom's clothes on it, and after neatly weakening a rail on the platform above, tipped it over the edge.

"The humans probably won't bother with a full autopsy. Unless this godfather person arranges one - and that will be done by one of his own people. Either way, the humans will end up with a finding of accidental death, and the immortals will figure I've been cleverly murdered, probably by immortals, and cover it up."

"Very neat." I observed.

We left the backpack slung carelessly at the base of the tower, as if Rom had decided to go for a quick climb up the stairs.

The whole process left me with cold chills going down my spine. Handling the cadaver, callously tipping it over. The disturbing similarity of the corpse's face to that of our new friend. The horrible unnatural position of the body where it had landed below. I was glad I didn't have the need for natural sleep anymore.