Hybrid

The Root of All Evil

"Joseph! Take Emma and run!" I hear my father's voice through the bedroom door. Simultaneously the entire house shakes as something tears through the walls of Emma's childhood home. I hear cries from wounded soldiers.

"What's happening?" Emma yells. She follows behind me as I run out of the bedroom to find a machine with robotic arms busting through the walls of the house. My father wears the suit of a soldier and carries a laser weapon that can bore holes through any object. He sees us at the top of the stairs.

"Get her out of here - now!"

My father raises his laser and slices off a piece of the machine's arm that had snatched up a soldier and was squeezing the life out of her. The soldier falls to the ground and scrambles away from the machine's reach. She retakes her position at the front line. My father carefully considers a kill shot - one that will take the entire machine down in one hit of the laser. However, these machines are made to regenerate themselves and their computer systems are not centralized like our brains. Instead their "brains" are spread throughout the machines. We use them on our planet as defense weapons. This one is being used to attack and it's target is Emma.

I attempt to freeze time but nothing happens. There's a force emanating from the machine that's stopping me from using any power of the mind. That must be why my father and the soldiers are engaged in a physical fight. Most fighting on our planet is done with the mind. In fact, I had to prepare myself for physical fighting for my trip to Earth, knowing that any attacks on Earth would require skillful hand-to-hand combat.

"Come on," I grab Emma's hand.

"No, we need to help." Emma runs down the staircase and I go after her. The machine sets it sights on Emma as she runs toward it. She grabs a laser from a wounded soldier and takes aim. She fires the laser and sheers off one of the machine's tentacles. In retaliation, the machine uses another tentacle to grab her and just as it's about to encase her in a plastic housing for flight, my father shoots the plastic - shattering it and throwing Emma to the ground. At least the plastic isn't laser-proof. Emma gets back up ready to tackle the machine again and my father grabs her. He throws her over his shoulder and runs her back up into the bedroom. I follow them both. The soldiers continue to fight off the machine.

Inside the room, he puts Emma down. She pushes him away forcefully. I've never seen anyone push my father. He reels from the venomous look Emma gives him.

"I'm not a damsel in distress."

"You're more valuable to us alive than dead," my father responds.

Emma seethes, "I'm not a thing on which you can put a value. I'm a human being ... or I used to be until you got here and threw my entire life into turmoil. This can't be what my father wanted. All of this fighting must stop."

I step in. "We respect that you're half human. And we come here seeking peace. Everything we're doing is to protect all species. Let's work together." I look at both Emma and my father.

They both nod. The machine then bursts through the door and two tentacles reach for Emma, as my father levels his laser at the invader. I grab Emma and try to teleport with her but the energy surrounding the home is still blocking my power. I grab her hand instead and run to the window as my father's laser tears apart each deadly tentacle. I throw open the window just as the bedroom roof rips open and a huge wind tears Emma from my grasp. She's being sucked toward the enemy's spaceship that hovers close to the house. Emma tries with all her newfound might to fight the pull. 

I'm sucked up too and I manage to reach Emma. We grab each other's arms and look into each other's eyes as we're pulled toward the spaceship. "Don't let go," I say. "We're in this together."

"I'm trying." The pull is too much. We're being forced apart. 

"Emma, look at me," I say. Our combined energy slows our ascent. We focus on each other - our sheer wills of survival and love for each other are slowing down the pull from the hovering ship.

A massive explosion above us releases the pull and we're thrown down toward Earth. We hit the ground hard as huge pieces of the spaceship rain down over us. I place my body over Emma's to protect her from the falling pieces of the ship.

The ship debris continues to fall. I look up to the sky to see one of my father's ships hovering where the enemy ship once flew. It's now engaged in fighting off the enemy soldiers, giving us the opportunity to get away. They must feel it's too dangerous to pull us to their ship or we would have been airlifted by now. We're safer on our own. "Fly with me," I say. I roll off of her and we grab each other's hands and fly up over the backyard. The pool where Emma's half-brother had been captured is now empty.

"Where is he? Where is my brother?"

"He's been taken, probably by his own army. It's no longer safe to return to my planet. They've taken our machines for their own offense. Who knows what else they're doing back home?"

"If I don't go there then who's in power?"

"The High Council remains in power. Your brother could stage a coup and force a takeover. But his command would be illegal. You are the only rightful heir. You are first in line. Only you have the power to hand over the reign to him or he would be the rightful heir upon your death."

"I need time to learn about your planet and the entire universe. I can't be expected to be thrown into power without knowledge of how everything works."

"We can't stay on Earth either. I must take you to another planet. Somewhere we can be on our own for a while."

"Is there such a place?"

"I have a place in mind. I found it on one of my journeys to learn the universe. It's not hospitable to aliens or humans but I have a friend there and it's the only place where we can be relatively safe, for now."

"Sounds like a dream," I say sarcastically. "But will your father be okay if we leave him? And what about my neighbors?"

We both look back at the burning shell of Emma's childhood home. The spaceship is helping to fight off the tentacled machines. The soldiers and my father easily fight them back and look to be preparing themselves for departure.

"He'll be fine. As soon as they leave, the house will be visible to humans again and the fire department will probably say the furnace exploded."

"And no one will know there was a war right next door."

"We'll know."

"Knowledge may be power but power seems to be the root of all evil."

"That's why we fight for good to be in power."

"And hope the good aren't corrupted by the power itself."

"If you're the good, I have faith you'll never been corrupted."

Emma stares at what used to be her safe place - a home full of fond memories is no longer there. She looks at me, "Let's head to the inhospitable planet. Right now, it's way more inviting than this place."