Caleb Stevens, four years old, stood at the bottom of the staircase with tears wetting his ruddy cheeks. His polo shirt and cargo pants bore evidence of a recent snack. One of his miniature Converse sneakers was untied. His tiny fist clenched the ear of a stuffed toy rabbit that dangled at his side.

“Oh, shit,” Mr. Black said. In the midst of all the drama, they’d forgotten about the Stevens’ youngest child.

Sam shook off his self-pity and snapped into action. “Cassie, get back to that body and get me an analysis,” he ordered. “This shouldn’t have happened. Check his DNA.” Cassie nodded and headed back to the kitchen. Sam crept over to the child and knelt down, blocking the boy’s view of the gore. He placed his hands on the child’s shoulders. “Hey, buddy,” he said. “My name is Sam. I’m a friend of your Mommy. You okay?” Thankfully, the child showed no obvious signs of injury.

“What happened to Mommy?” the child asked through his tears. “Where’s Daddy?”

Sam wrapped the boy in his arms. “It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay.” Sam looked over his shoulder to see Mr. Black eyeing the boy, his quivering lip a rare expression of empathy. Mr. Black coughed and looked away. Sam turned his attention back to the child, allowing the normally stoic Arcturian his dignity, and giving him a moment to adjust his neurochemistry. Sam released the boy, keeping his hands on the child’s shoulders. “Caleb, what happened? Did you see anything? Did you hear anything?”

The child spoke in between sobs. “I was upstairs, and Mommy and Daddy were yelling. I came down and Daddy looked mad, so I hid in da closet.”

Sam tried not to think about the boy’s terror as he hid in that closet, listening as his father murdered his mother and brother. He knew the psychological trauma of the day’s events would have a devastating impact on the boy’s developing neurophysiology. Trauma of this degree wouldn’t simply live in the child’s mind, it would help create it. He couldn’t allow his mistakes to bestow Caleb with a lifetime wrought with emotional difficulty. He owed Cathy that much, and so much more.

“That was smart buddy. You did good,” Sam said. “Now I want you to look at me and close your eyes. Can you do that for me?” The boy nodded. As the child’s lids lowered, Sam activated his cymatic implants. His eyes filled with a soft, glowing light as the cycle of hypnotic stimulus began. “Okay buddy, open your eyes." The child opened his eyes and took a surprised breath at the site of the soothing lights. His eyes grew wide with the innocence of a shocked kitten. “That’s a good boy,” Sam said. “Just look at the pretty lights.” The child quickly eased into a trance, mesmerized by the pulsing sequence of colors displayed by the cymatic projection. Satisfied the boy was sufficiently entranced, Sam halted the sequence and the lights in his eyes subsided.

“Now listen to me Caleb,” Sam said. “You aren’t going to remember any of this. You didn’t see any of this. You aren’t going to remember anything that happened here today. Nod your head if you understand.” The child nodded, his eyes still wide with wonder. “Good. Now who’s this?” Sam picked up the toy rabbit that was now on the floor.

“Mr. Bunny,” the child said. With several open stitches and a loose eye, Mr. Bunny was well worn, and well loved.

“Mr. Bunny," Sam said. "Simple and accurate, I like it. Okay, this nice man here is Mr. Black. Can you say hi to Mr. Black?”

“Hi, Mr. Black,” the child said, still staring at Sam.

“Good. Always remember your manners. Now I want you to take Mr. Bunny upstairs and play. Then Mr. Black will come get you in a little while. And when he comes, you won’t be scared, and you’ll do whatever he says. Then he’ll take you to see your Grandma and Grandpa. You get to go live with them from now on, okay?”

“Are Mommy and Daddy and Chase gonna come stay at Grandma and Grandpa’s too?”

Sam cleared his throat. “No sweetheart, not this time,” he said while tying the boy’s shoe. “But Grandma and Grandpa will explain everything to you later, alright?”

“Okay.”

Sam took the child in his arms again and whispered, “You’re gonna be okay, kiddo. We’ll be watching you from now on. Now off you go.”

“Okay, bye Mr. Sam. Bye Mr. Black.” The child smiled and scampered away, dragging Mr. Bunny behind him all the way up the stairs.

“You alright?” Mr. Black said.

Sam furrowed his pointed brows. “Yeah, I’m good. That mem wipe should be permanent. I couldn’t leave him remembering his mother like that. I don’t want to remember it myself.”

“He’ll have a shadow detail on him from now on,” Mr. Black said. “We’ll pad the trust his parents have and add the profit from the house. He’s got a few aunts and uncles, so we have options for whenever his grandparents pass. He won’t have to worry about much for the rest of his life. And the Dracs won’t get anywhere near him ever again. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Thank you."

Cassie called to them from the kitchen. “Sam, you need to look at this." They headed back and found her standing over the body.

“I just scanned a DNA sample and ran it against the database,” she said. “Take a look at this.” She handed him her smartphone. Humans had unwittingly created the perfect medium for hiding alien technology. “He’s not part of the bloodline. Your right, he’s not a hybrid.”

Sam grabbed the smartphone and checked the results. “I was hoping we had fucked up,” he said. “But if this is right, we have a serious problem.”

“It’s right there," she said, pointing at the screen. "His DNA is clean but he was still stage two. They aren’t supposed to be able to do that, right? It shouldn’t have been able to do anything more to him than some mild, subconscious manipulation, right?”

“Yeah, but it takes at least at least three months to get to stage two,” Mr. Black said. “We only got the notification for his lost tracker last night. So whatever they did to him happened then. But how the fuck does someone go from being H-DNA negative to a fucking full-blown stage two within twenty-four fucking hours?

“They don’t,” Sam said. “The scan’s not wrong. That’s why it made him kill himself. Without the hybrid DNA, the body wasn’t stable. It knew it wasn’t going to be able to keep him alive. They didn’t just send it here to kill Cathy. It was an experiment, a trial run. They wanted to show off their progress.”

“Cuurraatorr...” The body on the floor growled. Cassie gasped and stumbled backwards.

“The fuck,” Mr. Black said as he whipped out his taser.

“Don’t,” Sam said, pushing him back.

“Cuurraatorr…” The body’s head was raised and smiling.

Sam’s rage surged again at the Drac’s mocking use of his title. He kneeled next to the smirking body and grabbed it by the shirt with both hands. The cymatic lights in his eyes flared as he yanked the Drac up to his face. “Who are you?” he shouted. “Which one? Ananel, Batraal, Turel? Which one of you mother fuckers is in there?”

The Drac replied with a spray of bloody spittle. Sam returned the favor with a sharp backhand. Cassie yelped. Mr. Black stepped forward, ready to pounce. “It’s okay,” Sam said. He leaned in close, the glow of his eyes casting an eerie spotlight on the Drac’s gleefully tortured face. “Give me your name!” The Drac responded with a slow, wicked cackle.

“I have no name…Curator.” Its smile widened. “We can all love them now.” The hiss of its final breath escaped as its head slid back down to the floor. A thick, black liquid rolled from its eyes. The delicate clinking of wind chimes and the chirping of birds sprinkled through the silence.

“Sam? What did that mean?” Cassie said, her voice quivering. Sam rose to his feet, not looking back. The lights in his eyes dimmed.

“It means we might be going home sooner than expected."