Chapter 1

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              Alien invasions are just so annoying. I mean yeah, there is a lot of destruction and people die but the aliens never win and it just makes it extra hard to get to work. This is either the twenty sixth or twenty seventh invasion and the endless drumming of bullets and the shattered windows are really starting to piss me off.

No alien invasion was going to stop me watching the season finale of Emergency 911. I was finally going to learn if Amanda would choose between the playful paramedic or the scruffy looking fireman. I wish they had an option where she could have chosen both, now there was a show that I think would be a ratings hit.

The microwave binged and that pulled me from going too far into fantasy land. The popcorn was ready. I grabbed it out of the microwave but didn’t plan on the bowl being so hot so quickly dropped it on the kitchen bench. It spilled of course but I was only on the mail. More bills for Eliza Ashton to pay. It wasn’t like my boyfriend had any of the bills in his name. I scooped the popcorn back into the bowl and grabbed a tea towel to carry it with and flopped down on the couch, turning on the television and pulled a blanket and some pillows around me for comfort. I had to work the night before so had recorded Emergency 911 with a plan to really cut loose and enjoy myself.

The television and movies were where I could escape. I could dream it was me having to choose which of the dreamy guys I would marry rather than some five foot nine blonde anorexic with big boobs. You know the sort of girl who fights bad guys in high heels but never actually breaks a heel. In my shows though I could meet a brilliant doctor, surgeon or Time Lord, I didn’t care. Any of those options that could get me away from my life and help me escape. I was a realist to know that no alien was going to fly into my apartment and whisk me away to a better life. I wasn’t that lucky. For now, I just wanted to relax.

It was hard to relax as a waitress sometimes. Especially when the uniform required me to wear tights. Don’t get me wrong, the tights are really comfortable but having Brian, the manager, “accidently” brush his hand over my ass five times an hour was not. I needed the job though to pay rent so I put up with it. Living in the East Village of New York, was pricy, even if it was the dodgy end and rent controlled.

My boyfriend Brad wasn’t much help financially. He’s a struggling artist which, according to my girlfriends, is code for broke deadbeat. He sold a piece to the blind guy down the hall in apartment 4B a few months ago but had spent the money on art supplies before we could use it on things we actually needed. Now I have to look at a brown mural on the wall of the apartment. It looked like someone had smeared poo all over the wall to me but Brad said that was just because I don’t understand art.

​

It wasn’t a huge apartment, two rooms really. The lounge was an ok size but it was cramped because of all of Brad’s art stuff. The bedroom was even smaller and one wall had all of Brads art stacked up against it to the point where you couldn’t walk around the end of the bed anymore and I had to climb over it to get to my side. The plumbing made monkey sex noises and the electricity flickered every now and again but the apartment did have one big advantage. If you sat at the end of the bed, at just the right angle, you had a great view down The Avenue to a nicer part of the city. That is, you could see the ice part if the invasion debris had been cleared away and nothing was on fire.

The repeated invasions of New York were just part of living in the Big Apple, part of the normal that New Yorkers lived through.

I pushed a lock of hair behind my ear. It wouldn’t stay there long as my hair was too short. Brad had pressured me into cutting it short in a pixie style. It looked great the first day after the hairdressers but I couldn’t style it the same way as the professionals and Brad had quickly decided that I had made a mistake getting it cut that way. He wanted it but it was my mistake. Now I had the joy of regrowing it to its old length but it had just gotten to that annoying length where in a months’ time it would be fine, but right now, it was so annoying I wanted to go the full Brittney and shave it off. Working the remote, I had to scroll past all of Brads shows before I came to mine. How he can record so much crap in under 24 hours I have no idea but soon I had the recap of the last episode playing. Then the power cut out.

              “Fuck My Life.” I yelled at no one in particular.

Power outages in the building weren’t unusual but the timing of this one couldn’t have been more annoying. Wondering if it was a fuse again, I climbed out of my couch nest to check, when the concussive boom of an explosion resonated outside blowing shards glass from the windows all across the apartment. Tiny squares of glass covered nearly every surface, including me. I ran my fingers over my face and checked my hands for blood. Last time an alien explosion blew out the windows, I had to get stitches on my arm but this time it looked like I didn’t get cut at all so that was a bonus. What wasn’t a bonus was that I was now standing in a sea of broken glass with bare feet.

              “This is gonna take so long to clean up. At least someone could just jump through the window and offer to help.”

Although I wasn’t expecting anyone to answer me, I was surprised when someone did jump through my window, or at least part of someone. A blue arm fell straight through the window, bounced off the edge of the couch and landed in a green-blooded splotch at my feet. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. First Brad’s poo brown ‘artistic’ mural and now this. It already looked like it was staining the carpet.

              “There goes the security deposit”.

​

What do you do when an arm falls through your window? It wasn’t something I had ever had to deal with before. Sure I had seen the bodies of the aliens a few times on the way to work after their failed invasion attempts but this was the first time I had been this close to one. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to pick it up yet so I just nudged it with my foot. Ewww, it was still warm. I needed to get closer but I didn’t want green blood in my hair. I grabbed a hair elastic off my dresser and quickly tied back my hair. I don’t know what it is about ponytails but I always felt ready for anything when my hair was tied back in one.

I squatted down and gingerly picked up the lonely arm. It was a deep sky blue and was covered with intricate tattoos that stretched along the bicep and right down to the forearm. The tattoo ink was dark black on the leathery blue skin and flowed in some alien cursive disappearing under a metal arm bracer that must have been some part of the alien’s armour.

              ‘I need to get rid of this thing’.

I stood up and looked around for a solution. The window was still broken so that seemed like the best place to dispose of it.

              ‘Time for you to go back where you came from’ and with a heave I threw it straight into the wall next to the window. Total miss and what was worse is that now it had splattered blood all over the wall on impact and sprayed even more when it hit the ground. I picked it up and threw it again but this time it bounced of the sill and again fell back into the apartment. Stamping my foot at the inconvenience of all these new stains didn’t solve anything but it sure made me feel better for a second. The third attempt at arm disposal was halted by the flowing metal blob that moved around the wrist of the alien’s arm. That innocuous piece of armour suddenly looked a lot more threatening as it moved off the arm and started oozing across the carpet toward me. I backed up away from it, not caring about the blood stains or glass covered floor. I kept moving away and it kept flowing toward me until I backed right up into the couch. I had nowhere else to go and it was only as I realised I could climb over the couch did I realise it was too late. It had reached my toe and quickly started moving up over my foot and up my leg. The hairs on my legs stood on end, an instant reminder that I really did need to shave them, as the silver puddle continued to pour its way up my body, under my clothes, past my stomach, all the way to my shoulder. It left little tingles over any part of my skin it had touched. It slowed at my shoulder before oozing down my left arm, reaching my wrist and spreading out to cover my forearm, wrist and extending to form a connecting ring that went around the bottom of my middle finger.

I felt a brief surge of electricity, equivalent to a strong static electric shock or seeing your Grandmother naked after the shower, before it became a semi solid, flexible arm covering. I held it up to my face and turned my wrist, noting how it seemed to be more like a second skin as it moved and twisted as I rotated my wrist. A blue light flashed on the bracer at the back of my hand and another electric vibe flowed out of the bracer and washed over me from head to toe, locking my muscles and I fell backwards over the back of the couch. I couldn’t move. Then from the skin under the bracer I felt excruciating pain as though a thousand acupuncture needles had all been stabbed into the same spot at once. My vision went black for a second and after that the pain was completely gone. I was however gasping for air as my body realised it had forgotten to do that breathing thing for a few seconds. I looked down at my wrist and calmly freaked out.

              ‘No, no, no, no, no. Get off, get off, get off’. Screaming at it wasn’t helping and no matter how many times I tugged at it, the bracer wouldn’t come off. I rushed into the bedroom to get something, anything to help. I had tweezers so I picked them up and tried to pry it off my arm with no success. I didn’t have any more luck with my hairbrush. I needed something bigger and my hiking boots seemed like just the thing. I put my arm on the dresser and slammed the boot down onto my arm. Not only did I not feel anything, there wasn’t any effect. Not even a dent or scruff mark on the shiny surface. I decided it was futile and sat back on the bed.

              ‘This won’t even match any of my other jewellery’.

              ‘I could change my appearance if you like,’ a mysterious voice said marked by an articulate, if snobbish, sounding British accent.

​

I stood up and looked around the room for whichever British guy had decided now was a good time to sneak into someone’s apartment. There was no one there. I rushed into the lounge room, thinking maybe that’s where this guy was but it was empty too. I’ll be the first to admit, I was freaking out even more now and moved slowly back into the bedroom, my eyes darting left and right to see if I could see whoever it was that was talking to me.

              ‘Oh dear, I hope I haven’t got one of the simple ones.’

I must have looked like an escaped mental patient as I ran around the apartment looking for whoever was talking to me. It didn’t take long to exhaust the rational possibilities but that didn’t stop my search, I just moved onto my bedside drawers and the bathroom cabinet. I gave up after trying to look under my bed only to remember I don’t have an under my bed space as it’s a solid piece of furniture we got from Brad’s Aunty as a gift when in reality she just wanted to get rid of it and didn’t want to pay to have it taken away. It was easier for her to have family do that for her for free while looking like a generous angel.

I got up from the floor and nearly fell over again as a wave of dizziness washed over me. I sat down on the edge of my bed, resting my head in my hands thinking maybe, just maybe, I had actually cracked. The arm was still leaking on the carpet a few feet from me. I wondered if the invading creatures had their brains and mouths in their arms, that could explain the voice. I slid slowly off the bed onto all fours and inched my way over to the arm. I poked it quickly, pulling my finger straight back after contact. I don’t know why I was scared to touch it now after picking it up just minutes ago but I think rational thought had caught a train out of the station already today. The arm didn’t move so I escalated to a quick slap. Still nothing.

I picked up the arm and sat back with my back against the bed. It looked different now. The blue skin seemed more vibrant, the black of the tattoo, more empty and endless and the green blood glowed with an inner fire. The forearm was paler than the rest of the arm and it wasn’t tattooed. It was in the same shape as the bracer on my forearm. Turning the limb around didn’t uncover new information but it did put the bleeding end lower than the hand and that meant more of the thick, partly fluorescent green blood, like half set jelly, leaked out over my sweat pants and the carpet.

             ‘Oh fuck, of course that would happen to me’.

              ‘It is not that bad. The green blood really sets off the orange of the bed covers.’

              ‘OK, who’s talking?’ Eliza asked, looking left and right.

              ‘I am. Down here. On your arm.’

              I randomly threw away the arm, this time, unintentionally getting my aim right as it sailed through and out the window.

I refocused on the shining metal bracer that was bound from my left forearm to wrist, wrapping around the base of my thumb. It seemed to have an inner glow about it with ice blue veins that pulsed like waves on a beach.

              ‘You talk?’

              ‘Yes but no one else can hear me. I am speaking straight into your mind.’

              ‘And you’re British? I have talking British jewellery on my arm.’

              ‘I am not actually British.’

              ‘You sound like Hugh Grant.’

              ‘Is that a compliment?’

              ‘That depends who you ask.’

              ‘My interface connects directly with your brain, hence only you can hear me. As such your brain, interprets my signals in a way that would be most effective and comforting. In this case I sound like this Hugh Grant gentleman.’

              ‘So what are you?’

              ‘I am an Infinity Construct. I am the thirty third Infinity Construct of my generation. My previous owner called me Bargle. That was his arm you just tossed out the window.’

              ‘You have a name?’

              ‘Most beings do. How would one utilise my interface if they had no way to quantify my existence with a name?’

              ‘This is crazy. This is sooo crazy. Why can’t this be a normal Thursday?’

              ‘In point of fact it is Wednesday.’

              ‘Thanks for that Bargle. Shit, that is a ridiculous name. I can’t keep using a name that sounds like a 4-year-old invented it for their favourite stuffed toy. You said you are the thirty-third infinity construct right? So, the thirty third IC. I’m going to call you IC33 if that’s ok?’

              ‘That is perfectly acceptable.’

              ‘Well my name’s Eliza.’

              ‘This is known to me also. You are Eliza Ashman, aged twenty-four.’

              ‘How do you know that? Have you been spying on me?’

              ‘I have not. You have a boyfriend names Bradley Smallwood. You have concerns that he is using you to fund his art career and is not serious about settling down and marrying you.’

              ‘No I’m not.’

              ‘You have been trying to drop hints about marriage for two years and have recently resorted to ceasing your birth control medication so that once pregnant, Bradley will do the right thing and marry you.’

              ‘Hey, that's not cool. I am so not doing that. . . I've just forgotten a few times.’

              ‘I disagree. You say to yourself that forgetting the tablet is accidental but you are aware that it is not.’

              ‘Well it's not working out either way. Figures that I can't even get pregnant easily.’

              ‘Your physiology is in perfect working order. I surmise that the problem does not rest with you, but rather with Bradley Smallwood and his alleged ‘abs of steel’. Based on your recollections I believe his body fat percentage is so low that his sperm have been adversely affected.’

              ‘He's shooting blanks?’

              ‘I do not believe he is shooting anything but until I see him with a weapon I cannot be sure.’

              ‘It's a saying. It means . . . you know it doesn't matter what it means, I love him.’

              ‘My analysis says that you do not believe that to be true either. You wish it to be true and you have made many attempts to look at the situation logically, however the increased chemical imbalance that occurs when he takes his shirt off seems to distract you from that purpose.’

              ‘Hey that’s. . . that’s. . . that's beside the point. It's. . . my own fault. I'm not worldly and artsy enough for him. He's seen so much and I haven't seen much of anything.’

              ‘I disagree. I find you most interesting and remarkably different than my previous owner.’

              ‘Really? Your last owner was a bloodthirsty alien invader.’

              ‘Yes. Very single minded individual. Quite boring.’

              ‘And I'm not boring?’

              ‘Not boring in the slightest. For example, my previous companion would have rampaged through every apartment on this floor, indiscriminately slaughtering everyone he encountered and urinating on their corpses to mark them as his next meal. However, you have not killed a single individual human life ever, let alone urinated on anyone.’

              ‘Humans don't generally go around peeing on things as a rule, besides I probably would screw it up if I tried.’

              ‘The urination or the killing?’

              ‘Both.’

              ‘You are a very pessimistic person aren't you? I am sure you could adequately dispatch someone if required and dispose of the body quite effectively.’

              ‘Um, no. I am pretty sure I couldn't do either of those things.’

A loud rumble cuts short our “getting to know you” session. I start to stand up but end up back on one knee, loud rumbles turn into a breaking sounds as huge cracks start to open in the walls and then stop about halfway up. I don’t notice the crack in the ceiling until it dumps a half ton of dust over me and everything else in the room.

              ‘Perhaps, Eliza Ashman, it is time to find out exactly what you can and cannot do. I do believe that this building is becoming unstable from the activities occurring outside and it is time to leave. Perhaps a change of clothes out of what you call, sweats, although I don't register you as sweating at this instant, would be an appropriate course of action.’

              ‘To do what?’

              ‘To survive, to fight back, to give birth in safety. To escape the certain doom that this city is about to endure. Are any of these acceptable?’

              ‘I'll probably die either way, so why not.’

              ‘Indeed, pessimistic is a bit of an understatement with you is it not.’

              ‘Dude, stop being so British.’

​

IC did have a point though, leaving the small one-bedroom apartment, with its paint fumes, paint splatters and discarded canvases would be the right course of action. I quickly changed into my good jeans, the ones without the rips, a Coldplay t-shirt and my fancy aqua cardigan. Hell, if I am going to die, I wanted to look at least passable for the coroner. I released and retied my thick red hair up in a more secure ponytail, grabbed my phone and purse and I was ready to go.

              ‘I am not sure if you will need those out there. Perhaps the baseball bat from the cupboard might be a better accompaniment to this adventure.’

              ‘But what if Brad tries to call?’

              ‘All communication is currently out of service and considering his skillset he is most likely already dead.’

              ‘Now who's the pessimist?’

              ‘On the contrary, I am optimistic that he is already deceased.’

              ‘Oh shut up.’

I threw the purse and phone back onto the couch and made a line for Brad’s most precious possession. His signed Boss Paigley baseball bat. I grabbed it off the display mounted on the wall and gave it a practise swing.

              ‘Yep that will do nicely’.

Ready to go, I opened the front door but looked behind to the life I was about to leave, the things I had collected that didn’t seem as important now. The apartment was more than that though. It was comfort and the safety of somewhere that I knew. I wasn’t a big fan of change. All those feelings, resting in such a small space. For a second I thought that maybe I should stay, it was only going to get worse out there. Then my eyes came to rest on the wall art. The brown, brownness of Brad’s wall mural. I hadn’t thought about all the different shades of brown that he had used. Like poo on a wall. I have poo colours on my wall. With this realisation, I went back and picked up my phone and purse, walking out of the apartment shutting the door firmly behind me.

​

In the hallway, it became truly transparent how lucky I had been so far. One end of the apartment block was simply not there, it just opened into a void of space showing the building just next door. Wind screamed down the darkened corridor. I moved slowly down the long, partially lit corridor, avoiding the broken fluorescent lights hanging limply from wires in the ceiling and wondering if that television show would have even been broadcast. It was easy to forget the sounds of explosions and death when you live in a small city apartment, with two windows that open into a tiny alley and a full Netflix subscription.

I crept passed another apartment, its door partially open. Old Mr Andersons place. She hated those moments when she would get stuck in the lift with him. He would stand on his tiptoes just so he could stare down my cleavage. He was laying on the ground just inside his apartment, obviously dead. His eyes stared straight ahead now so no more cleavage views for him.

It was an odd thought even for me. I mean, I would have some really stupid ideas run through my head. Like when I spent half an hour thinking that about the word dis. Like you could obey something or disobey something, you could be armed or disarmed. But you couldn’t just be “gruntled” or “astrous”.

I was calmer than I expected to be seeing a dead guy this close. Unusually calm. Why wasn’t I freaking out? Why wasn’t I freaking out about the fact that I wasn’t getting freaked out? My train of thought got derailed, was it just railed before, by IC33.

              ‘I do believe the stairs may be the best option.’

              ‘You think? Here I was thinking about saving my energy and using the lift. . . in a blackout!’

              ‘That would be unwise.’

              ‘No shit Sherlock. With my luck, even if it started it would only get stuck anyway between floors.’

              ‘Actually, it is more due to the fact that the elevator was at the other end of the building and that end does not appear to exist anymore.’

​

It only took five minutes to climb over the rubble in the stairwell and get down to the street. A quick hop over some fallen bricks and I was out at street level and able to see the devastation clearly.

              ‘Elizaaaaaaa!’

I turned at the sound of my name to see Brad running towards me, his golden hair flowing out behind him and his satchel bag at his side. Even in the midst of a crisis, he still looked like a model most of the time.

              ‘Brad, you came for me?’

              ‘Uh yeah sure. You look good, the apartment doesn’t.’

              ‘I think it’s time to leave New York. I hear Toronto is nice and invasion free.’

              ‘Yeah I guess we could leave. Did you get my paint kit?’

              ‘No. Why would I get your paint kit?’

              ‘Because art is my life and that is the most important thing in that apartment.’

              ‘Apart from me of course. Or our future together.’

              ‘Oh yeah. You are the most important I guess. Hey, you brought my signed Boss Paigley bat.’

              ‘Only to protect myself with.’

              ‘You can’t use my bat to actually hit something . . . it would ruin its value’

              ‘What? Isn’t my life more important than the bat or its fucking value?’

You know those times when men are asked questions that require immediate answers. This was one of those moments, yet Brad paused before answering.

              ‘That wasn’t a trick question Brad. I can’t believe you sometimes. Do you even love me?’

              ‘Well, love is a big word.’

Oh dear god what had I done. I had wasted so much time with this guy. Five years of hearing him go on about boring arty shit. That’s it, I am done. I needed Brad out of my life and if I just happened to hit him in the head, hard, with his own bat, it wouldn’t be that bad a thing, would it? People would just think he died at the hands of an alien. These thoughts surprised me. I’m a nice person. I didn’t resort to violence and hitting Brad in the face with a bat would scar that perfect face. Maybe I could hit him in the back of the head. 

The decision of how hard to hit Brad, or where, was taken out of my hands, and it happened faster than I could ever have expected. A large piece of apartment 4C fell on his head, squashing him flat, destroying his perfect face and making his abs flatter than any gym workout could. Once the dust cleared and the initial shock wore off, I threw myself onto the rubble and started to lift away bricks and concrete, trying to dig down and find Brad, to help him.

              ‘Well that takes care of that complication’ the construct stated.

              ‘Complication? That was the love of my life.’

              ‘He was not going to serve any further use to you or the child. You are better off without him. Not only emotionally but in terms of dealing with the current crisis.’

              ‘Yes, I . . . I guess.’

I looked for the last time at what was left of the man who had let me down one time too many. I wasn’t feeling the pain and loss yet, I felt detached. It was a new sensation. I tried to think sad thoughts about Brad’s death and what that meant, but nothing.

              ‘I will miss his abs though.’

​

Glancing up and down at the destroyed street and the battle still being waged overhead, I tried to decide which way to go. During some of the aliens’ previously failed invasions, Madison Square Garden had been used as an evacuation point so I decided that was probably my best bet. Swinging the Boss Paigley bat over my shoulder, I headed north, hoping that it was being used as an evacuation point again.

              ‘I do think things are gonna get better for me from here on out.’

              ‘I could not agree more, for both of you.’

              ‘What do you mean for both of us. And who the hell is this child you mentioned.’

              ‘You are six weeks pregnant. I did mention this earlier when I was attempting to get you to leave the apartment.’

              ‘But Brad just­ . . .’

              ‘Yes he did.’

              ‘And I am . . .’

              ‘Yes you are.’

              ‘FUCK!!’

              ‘Yes I believe that is how it starts for humans.’

              ‘I am so screwed.’

              ‘Yes, you . . .’

              ‘No more jokes from you. No more anything for a few minutes. Brads dead. The father of my unborn child is dead.’

              ‘If it is any consolation, I believe you are better off without him.’

              ‘Yeah but raising a kids a lot of work. I always thought we would do it together.’

              ‘I do not believe Bradley Smallwood would have provided much assistance with the work required to raise a child. His work was completed about six weeks ago, in two minutes and three seconds.’

              ‘I thought you said he was shooting blanks?’

              ‘Maybe there was one lone sperm who desired to get away from his owner and fought against the odds.’

              ‘Oh crap. I'm pregnant and there is a frikkin war going on. I need to get out of here.’

              ‘I believe North is the direction you are looking for.’

I looked again at the rubble at my feet. Brad’s last resting place.

              ‘But Brad might be alive.’

              ‘I can assure you that there are no life signs to be detected. He is dead.’

              ‘But he was going to be a father. . . he didn’t even know. . . and I was going to hit him with the bat.’

              ‘You did not however. Either way he is not able to assist you any further and you do need to leave the city.’

              ‘You’re right IC. Time to get on with things.’

​

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