God Gene - 1. Chapter 1

As the sky grew blacker, the birds flew wildly from the treetops, scattering in every direction. The daytime sun slowly disappeared until it vanished completely. All of the stars that should have speckled the night were missing, only the deep blackness of nothing remained. It was pitch black, darker than a midnight sky. No light, no color, and no sound.

 

My eyes struggled to make out something, but there was nothing. Just when I thought I saw a movement, a sudden beam of light split the night. The long grass swayed where the brilliant blue light illuminated a narrow circle on the ground below.

 

There it was again…movement. Something stepped into the light.

 

At first, I thought it was a man, but the long arms and ambling gait confirmed that it was an ape. It tentatively stepped into the circle as the bright light reflected off his dark eyes and brown fur. When he looked up, staring blindly into the unfamiliar blue light hovering in the sky above, a flash trapped him in the center. His arms and legs were unnaturally stiff as the light lifted his big body off the ground, pulling him into the beam of light as if he weighed less than a grain of sand.

 

The light carried him up until he reached the bottom of the huge craft blocking out the sky, then as fast as it had arrived, it disappeared.

***

“Wait! Come back!” I screamed into the darkness.

 

“Gabe, wake up, you’re dreaming again.” The warmth of Patrick’s voice pulled me out of the nightmare. My eyes flashed open. It was still dark, but this time it was familiar. I was in our bedroom with the man that I love holding me tight as I trembled from the memories of my recurring dream.

 

“Well, Mr. Ape-Man, which one was it tonight?” Patrick purred softly against my ear. He was still sleepy and I hated that I had waken him up again. I ripped Patrick out of his sleep almost every night with these crazy delusions that have plagued me since I was a child. It was always one of the same two scenarios, one where the ape was taken up into some sort of spaceship or the other where they brought him back.

 

“They took him,” I broke off with a small sob.

 

Each time I had the dream, I saw new details that I hadn’t noticed before. A few nights ago, when they returned him, as the ape descended inside the bright blue light, I saw that his dark brown eyes were now a brilliant sparkling blue and when his feet hit the ground, instead of ambling off with his knuckles dragging behind him, he held his head up high and walked with the confident strut of a modern man.

 

Before, the dreams happened every once in a while, but this fall they became more consistent. The holidays used to be my favorite time of year and now that it was mid December, I couldn’t think about anything except these crazy dreams plaguing my sleep every night.

 

I twisted myself in Patrick’s warm arms so I could lay my head on his bare chest. Patrick hummed against my ear as his hands softly stroked my hair. “Shhh, babe, its okay, it was just a dream.”

 

Patrick held me until my heartbeat returned to normal and I was able to drift off to sleep. I tried to enjoy what little time was left of the night, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to shake this feeling. I had to face it; there was no way that I was getting any rest tonight.

***

Tired and sleepy, my feet dragged as I made my way up the long sterile hallway to the lab. The first two times I swiped my keycard, the digital scanner let out an angry beep.

 

“C’mon,” I grumbled under my breath. “What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you open up and let me in?” I kicked at the big steel doorway when it wouldn’t open, then I realized that I had been sticking my metro card inside the key strip.

 

Rolling my eyes and chuckling at my mistake, before I could fish the right card out of my satchel, the door popped open as someone exited from inside.

 

“Gabe,” Naomi stepped back from the doorway when she noticed me hovering in the hallway. “What are you doing out here? I expected you to be in the lab over an hour ago.”

 

Not wanting to worry her, I scrambled for an excuse. It did no good. She knew me too well and as soon as she spotted the

dark purple rims under my eyes, she knew.

 

“Well, I guess that will be a double shot cappuccino for you and a half soy latte for me.”

 

I let out a long sigh, “Is it that obvious?”

 

Stepping past me as Naomi backed her way down the hallway; she tilted her blond head to the side and grinned. “Yeah, it’s obvious, but in your defense, after working with you for the last five years, I’ve seen you looking worse.”

 

That didn’t help much. I knew that she was only being playful, which was one of the reasons I liked her so much, however, today I just wasn’t in the mood. “Coffee would be great.” Before Naomi got more than a few steps, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was gnawing away at me.

 

“Hey, Naomi, have you checked the lab results on M7311 yet?” The large male ape was discovered in a remote area of the jungle. Not only was he stronger and faster than the others, he showed incredible promise with the Kohs Block Test.

 

“They’re on your desk.” She answered with a wink and a nod before turning and skipping the rest of the way down the hallway.

 

The report was more than promising, it was amazing. This was the entire reason that I got into primate research in the beginning. It had started with my tormented dreams. I’d learned the hard way that discussing my childhood nightmare was a bad idea. It seemed like whenever someone heard about an average ape being abducted by aliens then returned a changed animal, a creature closer to modern man than the primates he lived among, all hope of anyone taking me serious flew out the window.

 

The report was labeled with complex color coding that was closer to homo sapien genes than hominoid genes. The rainbow of lines began to blur together. I tried to shake my head, to clear the sleepy haze from my mind but I couldn’t. Naomi wouldn’t be back for at least fifteen minutes; if I closed my eyes for a few minutes, then I’d be refreshed and ready to work when she returned.

 

My eyelids slid easily over my tired blue eyes. Just a few minutes, I promised myself, and then I had to start the next step in genecoding. Drifting off, a warm peaceful feeling caressed my entire body.

 

“Gabe!” Someone was shouting. Can’t they see that I’m just trying to rest for a few minutes? What does a guy have to do to get a few minutes of peace?

 

“Gabriel, Wake up!” Naomi was shaking my shoulder when my eyes suddenly flashed open. I jumped up and looked around. Her face was pale as she nervously twisted the coffee cup in her hands. Everyone in the entire lab was standing there watching me.

 

“W-w-what’s going on?” I muttered.

 

“Why don’t you tell us? You were…” Naomi searched for the right words, “you were talking in your sleep--”

 

Suddenly embarrassed, I quickly apologized, “I’m sorry.”

 

“—in two different voices.” Naomi spoke her last words only loud enough for me to hear. Before she continued, she glanced over her shoulder and barked orders for everyone to get back to work.

 

“I know you’ve been really stressed, we’ve all been a little freaked out with the Mayan calendar and talk of the coming apocalypse that has been plastered all over the newspapers and television. Why don’t you go home and rest, Gabe? Tomorrow is another day.”

 

Naomi smiled at me. I knew that she had a crush on me, but I also knew that she liked Patrick and would never breathe a word of her feelings for me.

 

I nodded, “You’re right, tomorrow is another day, it’s the twentieth, and according to the press, it’s our last day before the end of the world as we know it.”

 

“You don’t actually believe all that hype, do you?”

 

I shrugged my shoulders. Right now, I didn’t know what I believed. Grabbing my satchel, I kept my eyes cast to the floor as I made my way to the door, avoiding any curious glances as I left. Maybe if I had looked up, I would have noticed Naomi picking up the reports on M7311 from my desk.

 

Her eyes narrowed in on the black marks scribbled across the pages, covering the report with random words and times. None of it made any sense.

***

Bang! Bang! Bang! The heavy fist pounded on the door for a second time.

 

It was almost two o’clock and I had finally gotten to sleep. “This had better be real fucking important or I’m ripping someone’s head off.” I growled as I made my way to the front door.

 

Jerking open the door, I found two large men standing in the hallway. A rush of winter air encircled my boxer-clad legs bringing a chill that peppered my skin with goose bumps and turned my exposed nipples into hard pebbles.

 

My eyes darted back and forth between the men as they both stared back at me. “What?” I finally demanded, with my voice harsher then I had intended.

 

“Are you Gabriel Goldman?” One of the men asked, stepping forward as if I was going to run.

 

“Yeah, what’s this all about, officers?” It didn’t take a mad scientist to figure out that these two goons were cops.

 

“Mr. Goldman, we are going to need you to put some clothes on and come downtown with us.” Now, the other man inched closer too.

 

“You still didn’t tell me what this is about.” I gritted my teeth which caused the muscles to flex in my jaw. The men glanced at each other after observing my anger and getting ready for my next reaction.

 

“It’s about you blowing up the Church of New Hope today at exactly eleven o’clock this morning.”

***

“Like I’ve told you for the millionth time, I have no idea what you’re talking about!” I shouted at the cop sitting across the table from me.

 

Detective Palardi was smug. He thought he had everything figured out, but I could tell that the man was barely one gene strand away from one of my test subjects. The thought made me smirk.

 

“Oh, so now you think this is funny?” The man growled.

 

“Nope, but like I’ve told you and all your friends, charge me with something or let me fucking go. I think I’m supposed to get a phone call or something.”

 

His tone immediately changed. “This is just a friendly conversation, Mr. Goldman.”

 

I knew that there were others watching us from behind the two-way mirror. The room smelled like sweat, making my stomach turn from more than just my nerves. The harsh reflection from the single light hanging over the center of the table illuminated a blue circle in the middle of the table, leaving the edges of the windowless room plunged in shadows.

 

“Really,” I jerked my wrist against the metal cuffs, “then why am I in restraints?”

 

“That’s for your own protection. We wouldn’t want you to slip off that chair and hit your pretty face on the floor.”

 

I rolled my eyes. Palardi was a real douche bag, twisting the law to suit his own needs and I was trapped in the middle. I was tired, my arms ached, and all I wanted was to go home to Patrick and forget that this mistake ever happened.

 

“Well, if you’re innocent, then why did you leave evidence at your job for everyone to see? You weren’t as careful when it came to planning the bombing as you thought… now were you, Gabe?”

 

My head shot up, “What?”

 

The guy smirked, liking the surprised look on my face. He turned his body towards a small television set in the corner. Pulling the remote out of his pocket, the asshole smiled as the screen turned on and was already pre-set to play.

 

It was the security footage from work. I was at my desk nodding off.

 

“Your big evidence is me sleeping on the job?” I snickered; if this was the best they had, I was bound to be home before dinnertime.

 

“Wait for it…” Palardi was too excited to stand still. He fidgeted with the remote waiting while the screen showed my head

droop, lull to the side before suddenly snapping up. I would have thought this was the spot when Naomi woke me up, but I noticed that there was nobody near me. It looked like I was talking to someone while my hand was furiously scribbling across the M7311 lab reports. It went on for a few minutes until Naomi stepped into frame and woke me up like I remembered.

 

“So,” The detective slammed the crumpled report on the table. “Are you sticking with your original story, Mr. Goldman? Can you deny that this is your handwriting on your own lab work?”

 

Palardi reached up and hit the metal dome housing the interrogation light. The bluish cast swayed back and forth, making my head spin.

 

I stared at the sheets in disbelief. It was my handwriting, but I didn’t remember writing the words, ‘New Hope…no god…meet maker…11a.m.’ over and over again. I felt sick.

 

“I-I-I didn’t write that,” I was at a loss for words. “I swear it wasn’t me!”

 

“Tell me this, why did you do it? What did you have against a church full of innocent--” Palardi’s angry rant was interrupted when someone pounded on the interrogation room door.

 

His partner poked his head in and glared at me, “Turn him loose!”

 

“What?” Palardi and I both questioned the man at the same time.

 

“You heard me, Palardi, Sergeant said to let him go. We got the subway surveillance that shows Goldman got on at Darby Street and got off at Wilson, just like he said. The doorman at the Archer Towers also confirmed the time when Goldman got home and he didn’t leave again until we picked him up, so unless he has a teleporter in that apartment of his, there’s no way he could have been seventeen blocks away blowing up a church.”

***

Patrick ran his fingers through his short hair for the hundredth time in the last five minutes. “How the hell could the police mistake you for a terrorist?”

 

The anger that burned in his dark eyes had yet to start to simmer down.

 

“I don’t know what happened.” That was a lie. I knew exactly what happened. Fighting my tell-tale flush that always peppered my neck when I was dishonest; I didn’t want to upset Patrick more than he already was.

 

Naomi was a true friend. There was no way that this kind of scapegoating had come from her, but the other lab rats weren’t above throwing me under a bus to gain themselves a more favorable position in the lab.

 

I could think of five guys right off the top of my head that were jealous enough of my success to carelessly make false accusations to the police. Gene coding had always come naturally to me. The other lab rats had to work twice as hard to get only half of the results that I did.

 

“Look, babe, I just want to forget that this horrible incident ever happened,” I said as I concentrated on pulling the fresh vegetables out of the refrigerator.

 

Patrick folded his arms over his chest while he leaned against the counter and watched me hurry around the kitchen.

 

“I promised to make you a fabulous dinner tonight and nobody is going to ruin it. Can you get the pine nuts out of the cabinet for the salad--”

 

Without warning, Patrick pulled me into his arms. I melted against him. His cheeks were rough with two days worth of stubble.

 

“Gabe…” Oh my heavens, I loved the sound of him saying my name.

 

“How about,” Patrick’s voice was thick with lust, “we start with dessert first.”

 

His warm lips nibbled at my ear before gently skimming over my jaw to meet my hungry kiss. Patrick always felt like he was on fire. Hot cinnamon teased my tongue as his lips parted, inviting me to deepen our kiss.

 

I was breathlessly trembling in his arms, heart racing, head spinning, I needed him. Our bodies rubbing together, bringing me closer to the edge until Patrick suddenly broke the spell that he held me under.

 

“What the hell--” I muttered at the sudden loss of his touch.

 

Patrick’s deep laughter rumbled the air, “Let’s move this to the bedroom before we get too carried away and someone’s ass ends up bent over the kitchen table.”

 

I snickered, remembering the first night we had a dinner party. It was hard to keep a straight face knowing that just hours before the guest had arrived we had made love right where the candelabra sat in the center of the table.

 

Letting Patrick lead me to the bedroom, I was powerless to do anything but follow him.

***

Lacing Patrick’s fingers through mine, I snuggled back into his warm embrace. We never made it back out to the kitchen to fix dinner, instead, we satisfied each other’s deepest desires which was more important than food.

 

My eyes fluttered as I let out a dreamy, content sigh. We dozed off for a little nap before the urge returned and we needed more. It continued all night. I didn’t sleep long enough to have a nightmare. Maybe that was Patrick’s plan all along.

 

“Are you awake?” Patrick purred against my ear.

 

“No,” I answered with a sarcastic chuckle.

 

“Good, I can have my wicked way with you while you’re asleep.” He pressed his morning erection against my back.

 

“Down boy, if we don’t get up and get ready, we’ll never make it to work on time--”

 

Patrick suddenly sat up and rolled me onto my back so he could look into my eyes. “Gabe…we both took today off…remember?”

 

I could see the fear in his eyes. My mind raced. “Is today Friday?”

 

He slowly shook his head. “No, today’s the twentieth.”

 

The last few days were such a blur, no wonder I’d lost track of time. “So, we have all day together?”

 

“Yep, it’s just you and me. We can do whatever you want.” Patrick leaned in and brushed his lips over mine for a soft kiss.

 

The prospect of anything at my fingertips was more than I could pass up. Breakfast on the balcony followed by a long stroll through the park would have to wait. Right now, Patrick was all I wanted.

***

For once, the scream that ripped me from sleep wasn’t my own. Scrambling to get out of bed, my legs got tangled in the sheets and I landed on the floor with a loud thud.

 

My eyes searched for Patrick; he wasn’t in our bedroom, nobody was. It was just me in the room all alone. I had just gotten to my feet when I heard the scream again. It was the high pitched shriek of a woman.

 

I hated to take time to pull on my boxers, but if shit was going down the last thing I wanted was to be naked when it happened.

 

Flipping the light switch, nothing happened. The power was out. We always had a stash of emergency flashlights in the kitchen. Inching slowly through the dark, I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until my chest started to burn and I let out a gasp of air.

 

“Be quiet,” Patrick whispered from somewhere in the apartment.

 

My eyes narrowed in on him standing by the balcony’s glass door. “Patrick, what’s going on?”

 

“I was hoping you could tell me.” His voice was cold and hard.

 

“Me? Why the hell would I know what was going on?” I demanded as I joined him and caught my first glimpse of the city beyond our windows.

 

Gone were the pale blue and gray splashes that signaled the sun’s new arrival. No pink or red painted the eastern sky. It was early morning. Even without a clock, I could feel it, but the sky was as pitch black as a moonless night.

 

Staring into the darkness, a ray of blue light suddenly sliced the night. It trapped a man in the center of the beam. He held up his hands, but he wasn’t able to penetrate the side of the light. When the beam started to lift him up from the street, towards where the light originated, his kicking and screaming stopped. His body went stiff. There was no escape. When the man reached the top, he and the light disappeared into a large spacecraft hovering in the sky.

 

Within a second, four more blue rays of light shot out from the underbelly of the craft.

 

“Oh my god, what’s happening?” My voice was barely a squeak as we spoke in hushed tones.

 

“This is not god, Gabriel!” Patrick tried to keep calm, but I could hear the quiver in his tone. As his words sank in, I stumbled and lost my balance, landing hard on the floor.

 

“There is no god…this is…” My mind spun trying to remember something that was on the tip of my consciousness. It was there, yet I couldn’t reach it.

 

Another flash of blue light appeared outside our window. As it retracted, the old man two floors below, Mr. Carper, was taken into the spaceships harvesting the city’s occupants.

 

“That blue is so blinding,” Patrick growled.

 

“Yeah, I always had such a hard time focusing inside the light--”

 

Patrick’s jaw went slack. He grabbed my chin tipping my face toward the light outside. “Your eyes are the same color as the lights. They changed color, that’s what you said Gabe. You told me that the ape in your dreams, his eyes had changed color after they returned him.”

 

“I was taken!” As the words rolled off my tongue my memories flooded my body. I could feel them grabbing my arms and legs. They did tests on me, on my mind and my body. I was only twelve years old when they took me, but I could still hear their voice echoing inside my head.

 

“What do they want?” Patrick growled through his clenched teeth.

 

I pushed up off the floor. “Isn’t it obvious? They want us, Patrick. The experiment is over.”

 

“How do you know this?” Just as the words passed over Patrick’s lips, a loud explosion rocked the apartment. The ceiling cracked, pluming drywall dust into the air.

 

Rushing back to the window, another blast shot down from the sky. This beam was different then the bright lights abducting humans off the street. These surging electric rays struck a building a few blocks away, blowing it to pieces.

 

“Oh my god…that was St. Anthony’s,” Patrick sobbed.

 

Once the trembling started, it didn’t stop. “There’s no god,” I whispered. “That’s why they blew up the New Hope Church yesterday. They are telling us that it’s time to meet our maker, but it’s not the heavenly father that we were naive enough to believe.”

 

“Gabe! That doesn’t make sense--”

 

“Does any of this make sense? The Mayans knew that they’d be coming back. They tried to warn us.”

 

Patrick slumped to the floor staring at Gabriel, astonished by what he was hearing. “How do you know any of this?” He demanded.

 

“I saw it,” I ran my fingers through my hairs, causing it to stick out in every direction as I tried to make sense of it myself. “I don’t know if it was in my dreams or when they took me when I was a kid, but they showed me. There have been others over the years, but they only had a piece of the puzzle…”

 

“The ape might have been their first specimen, but he wasn’t the only one. We weren’t created in god’s image, we were created in theirs! Adding their DNA to ours changed us, made us capable of thinking, of feeling, of loving.” The lights outside of the window suddenly illuminated our apartment. Blue washed over the ceiling and walls.

 

Sliding open the glass door, as a tall thin figure appeared on the balcony, “What are you doing?” Patrick screamed stumbling away from the ominous creature standing only a few feet away us.

 

“They’ve done it before, over the centuries. It would be impossible to wait for mankind to make our own advances without their help. Do you think it just was coincident that Einstein or Newton came up with their brilliant ideas that were so far ahead of their time? Pushing humans further ahead than we ever could have imagined?”

 

The alien stepped inside the apartment. With long arms and legs he resembled a man, but his huge eyes and tiny mouth drew his face out of proportion. “Gabe?” Patrick’s voice quivered as the creature came closer. He watched us with fascinating curiosity.

 

“It’s okay Patrick, he’s not going to hurt us--”

 

“Why not?” Patrick believed me, but he didn’t understand why the creature wasn’t here to kill us.

 

“The experiment is over. Apes are native to earth, but we humans come from somewhere else…somewhere far away…” I held out my hand to Patrick, “are you ready to finally go home?”

 

Patrick slipped his warm fingers into my hand. They were still trembling, but he gave me a small smile, “I’m ready if you are.”