The Lambs: Part 3 (7/11)     
by Lamia (AKA so kiss me goodbye) 
                                        
Rating: PG-13 (violence, strong language)
Category: S                             
Spoilers: Seasons 1-9, Fight the Future           
Keywords: William; Colonization              
Summary: Liam van de Kamp's life changes the day two 
FBI agents kidnap him and his parents.
 

Chapter 38 

December 22, 2012 
New Mexico 

"This room is alive." 

Gibson stood before the pillar. Nothing moved beneath 
its surface although a glow had fired up in it. 

Liam didn't need to ask what had prompted Gibson's 
proclamation. He'd almost be willing to swear the room 
was breathing and he kept looking to his feet to catch 
the strange pitted floor in exhalation. 

"I'm ready to talk," Gibson murmured, pressing his 
palms to the pillar. "You might not like what I have to 
say. Help me, Liam." 

He wanted to find the hand. 

"You can wake it up. Let it know I'm here. You open 
yourself to it - that's how you do it." 

Liam swallowed his protest. The explanation made 
disturbing sense and to test the theory he slipped into 
the disembodied state he needed, concentrating on the 
glassy pillar in front of them. 

Beneath the surface, clouds formed and teemed and 
raced. A shadow flitted deep within the crystal 
structure. 

Before he could speak, a dark shape sprang at them, 
slamming against the thin shell barrier. Fingers spread 
against the inside of the column - and against the void 
Liam had created within himself. Instead of tearing a 
way out of a cocoon - like the clone supersoldier - 
this was something clawing its way in. 

Liam tensed up, preparing to defend himself. 

The skin on Gibson's cheeks had healed, but his eyes 
still looked unfocused and he gave no sign he saw what 
was in front of him. 

He didn't need sight. 

With spooky accuracy he pressed his index finger to the 
index finger in front of him. "This is what you want, 
isn't it? You think you're the hand of God." 

Within the pillar, dark clouds whipped around, 
projecting ripples onto the outer wall and making it 
seem the room was spinning. 

The storm obscured all but the sharp lines of the hand 
at its edge. Even they disappeared as the surface 
started to lose definition - lost in a hazy glow. 

It was becoming hard to see where Gibson ended and the 
pillar started. 

"Gibson, I don't like this -" 

"Stay back, Liam." Gibson strained with effort. "Get 
gone." Sweat, strangely, dribbled from his hand down 
the new pink flesh on his forearm, dripping to the 
floor and disappearing into the tiny carved marks. 

Gibson pressed against the alien fingertip - and it 
pressed back. 

A movement caught Liam's eye. The doctor was on her 
feet, pushing against the round wall. *Don't come in*, 
he thought at her, hoping she would pick up his 
message. 

A smell - like the desert after a rainstorm - began to 
pervade the room. Ozone. Liam turned back. A sheen 
rolled in waves across the pillar. 

"See?" Gibson said to the hand, "this time I can do it 
- and you'll want to hear what I have to say." 

Slowly he drew his hand back, enticing the finger and 
never breaking contact. The bony hand emerged from the 
maelstrom. 

It was the only part of the room not turning. 

There was little point questioning it. The ship was 
somehow both metal and life. 

The tip of Gibson's finger glowed brilliant scarlet. 
His face betrayed nothing. The strain had melted away 
and he smiled. 

And he sprang. 

He grabbed the hand with a snarl, crushing it in both 
of his. "I've got a message for you." 

He pulled. 

The room shrieked. 

Around them tiny barbs rose like angry bees. 

"Gibson!" When Liam tried to step forward, the barbs 
swarmed around his knees. He flailed at them, getting 
oily smudges on his clothes and skin, but they held him 
fast. He grabbed air as he tried to reach for Gibson. 

Gibson's arm was incandescent. Agony shone in sweat 
pouring off his forehead. 

"Gibson! Let go!" 

"Leave!" Gibson refused to release his death grip. 

"You're on fire!" 

Flames burst from the backs of his hands. Yet still he 
pulled. "Need more ti -" 

One second he was there - then the pillar flared. 

Liam dropped to the floor as hot air lifted the hair 
off his scalp. He waited for the white noise buzz in 
his ears to die before he looked up. Dust shimmered in 
the air. 

The hand was still there, poking from the pillar. 
Hanging with dejection. 

Was it upset? Gibson had wanted to destroy the Grays. 
Shouldn't it be gloating? 

The tiny ink guards sank to the floor and slipped down 
the carved grooves, leaving Liam alone with the hand. 

He glanced over his shoulder. The doctor looked at him 
helplessly from behind the barrier, which crackled with 
shorting electricity. Beyond her, tumbling shadows 
fell. Was the chamber breaking up now too? The world 
was coming down around them. 

He pushed himself up, feeling the heat in the room 
build. It had nowhere to go. The pillar was still 
pulsating. It could flash over again. 

He needed to find a way to turn it off before it 
destroyed the whole ship - or they'd never escape. 

He tried opening himself by summoning the emptiness. A 
feeling of expectancy flooded him. He couldn't push it 
away and he couldn't shut it off. The ship demanded 
something from him and now that it had him it wouldn't 
let him leave. 

*Do I have to give it what it wants?* 

Gibson hadn't offered friendship. He had had a message 
for the Grays. The nanobots had given him superhuman 
healing. He had hoped that would be enough for him to 
survive passing the message on. 

But what was the message? And who was sending it? 

*Who sends messages, Liam?* 

The mystery person who had helped them escape their 
farm. Who had sent them Garrett de Rosier and his 
friends. Who had guided them to Old Hachita. The 
watcher who knew things. Esther. 

Where was Esther now? Liam raised his hands, absorbed 
in the lines on his palms and fingers. Hands that were 
the genetic gift of his biological parents - and the 
amazing care of his mom and dad. 

The alien hand was alive. Was the ship enslaved to the 
Grays - or the Grays to the ship? Were they one and the 
same? 

Liam had no message to share. He had something else. A 
gift supposedly taken from him. That the Grays were 
going to give back. 

Dimly he was aware of the doctor hammering her fists on 
the wall behind him. She was safe, behind the strange 
glass. Safe for now. Nowhere was truly safe. 

Gibson had been trying to hurt the Grays. 

"That's not what you're for," Liam said to his hands. 

If ending it was as easy as giving them - the Grays and 
Gibson - what they wanted, he had no reason to deny 
them. Not when it meant a way of saving everyone else 
too. 

He understood why Dr Scully might be upset. Why his 
parents would be sad. But maybe he could save them all. 

Gibson had tried his damnedest - but Gibson hadn't been 
born for this task. 

The glow from the pillar was so bright Liam could 
almost see through his own skin. It didn't hurt. 

"That's not what you want, is it?" 

He stood before the pillar, centered himself and put 
himself inside the void. 

He reached out with his mind - the same way he had in 
the pie-room - exploring the black edges of the 
mysterious space he had made. It was impossible to see 
in the space; he could sense its boundaries - and an 
awareness beyond himself. Something trying to invade 
him. Maintaining his own cocoon was going to take every 
bit of concentration he could muster. He tapped the 
alien hand. If they could just meet in the middle - 

A giant bolt arced from the wall, making him turn to 
see the doctor thrown into the air. She came down in a 
heap. 

He waited a second, hoping to see her get up, and in 
that moment his concentration failed and the outside 
force overwhelmed him. The alien hand crushed his own 
and pulled him forward. A thousand upon a thousand 
images hit him. And the desperation of loneliness. And 
relentlessness. They would never let him go and they 
would never stop. 

He couldn't let go if he'd tried. They flooded him with 
everything. 

The doctor screamed at the wall to get in; the voices 
in the pillar screamed to get out. 

Liam's toes were burning. Heat spiralled up his arm 
from the hand which gripped his own. The grip seared 
into his flesh. 

He held on as if his life depended on it. His only 
chance was to give back. He imagined his molecules 
flowing from all over his body, and up his arm, and 
unchaining the bonds in his skin, and assembling at the 
border. They were tough little bastards. And he would 
send them all. He could see them. He told them to go. 

*Heal.* 

For the first time in his life, he could see into 
himself. The molecules weren't just in his imagination. 
His medic molecules were real, and he could make them 
travel. They moved like tiny stars under his skin. 

But the flow wasn't one-way. An alien chill crept into 
him and into his blood. A red mist in his eyes made it 
harder and harder to see. Not that it mattered; he was 
struggling to stay conscious. 

He barely registered the explosion which seemed to 
shake the room, but he could see the protective barrier 
had smashed, failed, fried - whatever it did. There was 
nothing left to stop Dr Scully coming for him. 

The alien hand went limp and a crack started to spread 
in the pillar. 

*Is it breaking out?* 

All he could think when his mind short-circuited and he 
was grabbed from behind was that Dr Scully had risked 
her life to save his for nothing. 

They fell back against the bowl floor. 

"You came," Liam said. 

"Always," she said, pulling him close. 

Liam blacked out.