Aekhem

Earth

VII

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES

Aekhem showed two pieces of blank papers folded in half to the man at the security checkpoint. The security officer looked at one piece of paper, then the other one, then looked at them. Abigael seemed a little nervous, the officer said:

"Are you all right Miss ..." looked at one piece of blank paper and said "... Rupnek?"

Abigael looked at him and then to Aekhem and said:

"I don't like flying" the officer smiled and responded.

"You are at the turning back point my dear, but we still

haven't built the highway to Japan"

Aekhem pretended to laugh at his joke and said:

"C'mon Joan, just a few hours and then fun for a whole week" he told Abigael.

"Honeymoon?" the officer asked with curiosity and couldn't stop looking at Abigael.

"I can only wish" and leaned a little forward to the officer as if he was going to tell him something confidential "I hope I can her to say yes on this trip"

"Son, if you don't get it, believe me, there will be a thousand more trying" and smiled to Abigael who blushed to the officer's comment "go ahead, enjoy your trip and .." he

looked at the blank paper and said "good luck!"

Joan smiled to the officer while Aekhem passed through the metal detector arch. Miss Rupnek followed him. Before going through, the same officer told her jokingly:

"Recently divorced and doing the rounds Miss Rupnek" she just smiled at him again.

After showing her blank piece of paper to the x-ray machine security guard, Abigael reached Aekhem who was calmly walking towards the boarding area.

"What are you doing?" she almost yelled at him.

As human, Aekhem was just as attractive to her as a woman.

"I need to rest" he said while sitting down "in this body I have the same needs just like anybody else and I'm only human" he said in a sarcastic voice "too many hours awake on bus and roads, without any sleep"

"We could have flown, you know?" she said

"I do know, but with all those sentinels looking for us. This way they cannot feel us, smell us, or sense us. Remember, at the Celestial, there are only a few that know how I look as human, but nobody knows how you look. As Angels, they can track us, and lately I have not felt the need to die under a fanatic Angel's sword or some other Angel just following orders ... at least in the last few thousand years" she didn't know if he was being funny or serious.

"Show me the paper you handed the security man" she asked.

From his shirt pocket he pulled out a sheet of paper folded in half.

"You mean this one?" he said smiling.

"How do you do it?" she asked while looking at the blank paper.

"Remember there were three lines at the security checkpoint?" he asked her.

"Yes, I didn't know why you were choosing the one with more people waiting but I assumed you were doing it for a reason" she replied.

"Good, thank you for not questioning me back there" he smiled politely at her. She looked at his white teeth and his red lips. Control yourself, she thought, control yourself. He continued talking "the other two, the security guards? They have strength in their thoughts and the one I chose had strength in his sight" she looked confused "let me explain it to you; human beings have a lot of strengths and only a few weaknesses. Their strength lies in their minds, their weakness in their body. If humans could get rid of the body and mind concept and concentrated more in the mind and body concept they would be closer to what we are and closer to what the Creator has given them. But we are not talking about that now, right? Right. Well, the two guards I mentioned, they are both intelligent humans and they rely more on their thinking instead on what they are seeing. They both dominate their way of living instead of allowing others to tell them what to do or think. But the guy we got he relies more on what he sees and he is easily influenced by the looks of everything and anybody and my dear, you can take anybody's attention away and erase their thinking" he told her while winking his right eye in a funny way to her.

Abigael blushed again and felt a little heat coming up to her cheeks.

"What is expecting us in Japan?" she asked dryly.

Aekhem noticed how his comment made her uncomfortable and answered:

"I really don't know. We have to go make sure the fortress around the prison it's strong and locked. The only problem is that it was covered in water after the first cataclysm"

"Under the water? Like under the ocean? How the hell are we going to go in there?" three people sitting across them turned to them as she raised her voice.

He took her hand and told her mentally "easy".

"Aekhem" she said still raising her voice "if you are trying to mentally calm me down, it doesn't work anymore since I transformed, so, stop that look and tell me, how the fuck are we going to go under there?"

Aekhem smiled. The old mental tricks didn't work on her anymore. Amazing.

"Easy" he said trying to communicate the word with his eyes ... didn't work either, she was pretty excited.

"An Angel's advantage? We breathe air, right? We have a nose, just like humans, therefore we breathe air. But we can also hold our breath for almost eight hours under the water if we need to. Believe me. I learned this the hardest way you can imagine. Back then, before America was discovered, I was there, you know, just like a human. But I decided to extend my wings. You know. And some of the natives saw me. They got scared and they started throwing me rocks and arrows were flying all around me, so I threw myself to the river and had to wait there for a long time, under the water. I didn't want to come out. They waited a long time. I didn't want to come out because I didn't want to create a legend about a human white bird. I waited until they left and ..." "Aekhem!" she interrupted him "I don't care about your stories. You can tell them to me another time. What are we going to do if we find out the place is not safe anymore and

Tusuer can get out of there soon?"

"We wait for Lacjner and get organized" he said with sadness in his voice.

"So, you mean, there is a possibility this is happening already? That is why Lacjner is at Yorkar. Getting everybody together in case this is happening?" she knew the answers to all of her questions.

"There is a very high probability this is happening already and even higher chance of a new war coming" Aekhem responded as if to himself.

His tired face revealed that. Tiredness of thousands of year not wanting this outcome but knowing it would happen.

Abigael decided to stop questioning him for answers he ignored.

"Did they hurt you?" she said amicably.

"Who? The natives?. Oh yes, two arrows hit me. Poison in their tips. Every time I went back to my human form I got sick. I had to hid in the jungle for almost two months in Angel form until my human body was able to move again. I know I cannot die but I can get sick and hurt and weak just like the rest and a sick human body is terrible"

"So you feel headaches, colds, stomach pain, and all of that. If you are wounded, does it hurt you? If you get a virus, do you get sick?" she asked smiling and he responded the same way.

"I see that you find pleasure that as a human I suffer just like the rest" he said.

"I like knowing that I'm with a regular guy not with someone who thinks is above the rest" she smiled again.

Aekhem smiled too and felt that connection he had been denying himself since they met. He decided not to think about it. He had to avoid any feelings for her. He did not know how this could end and there were a lot of human lives at risk. His duty was to them and not to just one individual or personal satisfaction of any kind. If as an Angel it was difficult not to feel what other Angel felt as human he was just as confused as any of them. It was better not to think, or try to think. No analyzing, no observations. Just watching her was satisfaction enough.

She felt how the way he was looking at her changed at that very moment. She felt how they just got disconnected. She knew his purpose was beyond anything human. She had to respect him and help him so that purpose saw an end.

She never felt charitable or humanitarian but thisridiculous incredible need now to help human kind was bigger than any personalinterest she could have over anything. Even the strong attraction she felt forthis man sitting next to her at LAX.