Subjects

25- Starry Eyes

"Will you please tell her to talk to me? I'm just as freaked out about what happened."

Ben, Emily, Roger and Angie stand outside their room and Eva is inside sitting on her bed, not planning to go outside until the apocalypse arrives and the aliens enslave them all. Or until they get to the shore, whichever comes sooner.

"I'll try," Emily tells Ben before going into the room.

"Spare me the talk, Em, I'm not speaking to him until he admits what he did," Eva hugs her pillow so hard that it looks painful, for the pillow.

"Please, Eva, Ben has no idea what happened and he's freaked out," she closes the door behind her.

"Yes, I heard," Eva says dryly.

"We need to figure this out together, like we always do." Emily sits beside Eva and turns to look at her. "I can't imagine how scary this must be," she says.

Eva still isn't looking at Emily when finally she speaks, "I thought we were safe here." She looks down and swallow the tears that threaten to emerge, "everything was OK. We escaped, we did it. What if... What if they wanted us to escape? What if they did something to Ben and..." she chokes on her words and becomes quiet again.

"He is still Ben," Emily says. "No matter what they think they can do to him. He is still our friend." Emily puts her arm around Eva and pulls her to a hug, "what's another alien gene to us? We'll figure it out, Eva. You don't need to be afraid."

It takes more than an hour before Eva agrees to be in the same room as Ben. Emily, Roger and Angie are sitting at the side like some sort of guard, ready to jump in and intervene at any second.

"Are you okay?" Ben asks.

"I'm okay."

Silence.

"I remember everything that happened on the ship," Ben says, he remembers even more than he'd like to. "There is no way they could have done something to me."

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"Ask me anything, I will do whatever it takes to prove to you that it's me," Ben says.

Eva says nothing for a couple of seconds. "What did you teach me?" she asks, "at the island."

"I taught you how to ride a bike," Ben says.

"At the island, that's it!" Emily jumps up.

"What?" Eva asks.

"You influenced Ben, remember? You were under the influence and you made him move out of your way!" Emily paces as she talks.

"I did, but that was different," Eva says. "It was because I was trying to complete what Leo told me to do."

"And I'm not influenced," Ben says.

"Are you sure?" Emily asks. "Maybe they told you something and you can't even remember?"

"I'm sure, and what kind of order would it be anyway? Make them eat? It doesn't make any sense."

"I can't think of any other reason that you would be able to influence us," Emily says.

"I don't think that the aliens would want us to be able to influence one another," Roger says. "They were intimidated by Angie alone, what reason do they have to give Ben the ability to influence us?"

"Exactly," Ben says. "There's no way that it's their idea."

"Maybe it only works once and that's why it didn't work on me," Emily suggests.

"But we would know by now if Ben could control us," Eva says. "What if it has to do with the influence he's under?"

"I already told you, I'm not under any influence."

"Whatever it was," Roger says, "I think we should just stay alert for anything weird like that and hope that it was a one time glitch of the gene."

"I agree," Ben says.

"As long as you promise not to make me do anything again," Eva says, "I agree to let this go for now."

Today is the best evening of the week. Why is that? Because today there are hamburgers for dinner. Right now the subjects, and Angie, are sitting at their usual place in the dining hall and digging into the closest thing to real food they've had in a while. Eva doesn't even drown her burger in ketchup, which has to count for something.

"So Jeff gave me the keys to the weather deck," Ben says. "I want to go up tonight, look at the stars." He looks at Eva, "you should come."

For a second she panics when she sees him looking at her in the eyes but then she doesn't feel any strange urges to obey and relaxes. "Maybe I'll come," she says, "if Emily goes too."

"Sounds cool, I'll go," Emily says.

"I want to go too!" Angie calls excitedly.

"I don't think it's such a good idea," Ben says. "Jeff told me to go up only after midnight, so no one sees us. I don't want you to get into trouble."

"It's not fair, why do you get to go?" Angie frowns.

"I won't go either, Angie," Roger says. "I can stay with you. We can do something else if you like."

"You will tell me a story?" Angie requests.

"Sure," Roger is only glad that he will get to keep his dinner unpuked.

Of course, when the time for stargazing arrives, Emily is already fast asleep and so are Roger and Angie.