Tristan checked the scans, No one was following them. He didn’t expect pursuit yet, not from the mercs on the station, they hadn’t planned for Tristan to make it off the station. Incoming ships were another thing, anyone of them could break from their course without warning. He kept an eye on them until he was far away to be confident none of them could do a quick turn and fire at him.

He programmed a course in the navigation system that would have them change vectors every few hours to keep those trying to extrapolate his destination guessing, then put in parameters in the sensor to alert him if any ship fell in line with their vector.

Now he had to deal with this problem.

Alex was standing in front of the closed door, looking at the floor. His body language wasn’t defiant, but he was determined.

“Please don’t do this,” the human said, his voice soft. He was making sure no sound carried through the door. 

That suited Tristan, it wouldn’t do to agitate the boy. He didn’t bother saying anything, only looking down at him.

“He’s just a child,” Alex said. “He doesn’t have anything to do with what his father’s got planned.” He looked up, pleading. “You have to see that, don’t you? You can’t take it out on him.”

Tristan kept his face devoid of emotion, but he felt like punching the human. He knew he’d have to put him in his place again, to remind him he had no say in what happened here, to him or to the boy. But he didn’t. Causing a commotion would agitate the boy.

He grabbed Alex by the neck a squeezed. Not hard enough to crush it, but even though the human didn’t immediately react, he couldn’t breathe anymore. He kept his eyes on Tristan, not showing any fear. Did he think Tristan was teasing him? That he’d let him go at the last moment?

Worry crossed Alex’s eyes, his hands twitched up, but he forced them to stay at his side. He was searching Tristan’s eyes. What he was looking for Tristan didn’t know, there was nothing there. Alex’s body began fighting the lack of oxygen. Fear filled his eyes and he grabbed at Tristan’s hand, trying to pry it open.

Tristan watched him without reacting. Let it sink in that Alex wasn’t in charge of his own life. Tristan could snuff it out at any time, and he didn’t have to be quick about it. He could make him suffer, he could take it away one inch at a time, make it painful.

He relaxed his grip enough for the human to gasp. Tristan waited for him to have caught his breath and leaned in next to his ear and whispered. “Don’t presume to tell me what I can and can’t do. Don’t mistake that your usefulness makes you invaluable. Do you understand?”

Alex nodded.

Tristan considered just releasing him, but instead threw him in the cockpit to impact with the pilot’s chair. “Get to work. You said you’d be able to get more information using my computer.”

He closed his eyes not caring how angry the human was with him, he could have walked away from this on the station. His target was the boy, he had to extract information from him. Mentally he went over the little he knew of him, he’d spent most of his life at the Roswell Academy, being told what to do, having to obey rules, even if he didn’t understand them. What did his free time consist of? Tristan didn’t know, but could make an educated guess. The academy would control that too, see that he followed a regiment that would keep him in good physical shape.

Tristan opened a locker and pulled a sealed box the size of his palm out of it, he’d kept specifically for such an occasion. He ripped the top with a claw, dumped half the content in the disposal unit then rumpled it until it no longer had any corner. He put it in a pocket, then he put his gun harness back in its locker.

He stood before the door, relaxed his features and his body, put a warm smile on his face and opened it.

“Hey buddy,” he said, entering.

The boy, Emil, if they were going to be friends, he had to refer to him by his name, was seated on the bed, a datapad on his lap. 

He looked up. “Hello,” he replied shyly.

“How is it going?”

Emil shrugged.

“I’m sorry things are taking longer than planned.”

Another shrug. “Aaron said we were attacked.”

“Yeah, we were, but don’t worry, will get you to your father.”

Emil’s expression was guarded. Tristan wasn’t good at determining human age when they were this small. He could be five years old to ten, but that expression belonged on an adult. Tristan’s childhood had been rough, but he hadn’t learned that expression until a few years before he left, when he’d begun to realize that as vital for his survival the things his father had put him through were, that wasn’t why he had done them.

Tristan pulled the crumpled box from the pocket and took one of the hard pills in it and popped it in his mouth, not reacting to the far to sweet taste of it. He offed the box to Emil. “You want one?”

The boy shook his head. “They aren’t good for me.”

Tristan gave Emil a closed-mouthed smile. “Of course not, they’re candies. They're not supposed to be good for you, just good.”

Emil shook his head again. “Thank you, but no.”

Tristan put the box away and swallowed the sickeningly sweet pill. He should have brought something to drink and wash the taste out of his mouth.

“What are you doing?” Tristan indicated the datapad.

“Problems.”

“Can I see?”

Emil handed it to him. They were mathematical equations. A quick look through the file brought up the header, which indicated the problems were got students thirteen and fourteen of age.

Tristan studied Emil as he handed the pad back. He didn’t think he could be thirteen, he seemed too small for that. “You like math?”

Emil smiled. It was a small one, but for that moment his face was unguarded. “I do.” The smile vanished.

Tristan chuckled. “I wasn’t much for math. I had to learn it to fly a ship, but it was hard. If I didn’t have to study it, I’d rather go play with friends. How about you? You have many friends?”

Emil thought it over, so when he answered Tristan knew the answer was a lie. “A few.”

“When’s the last time you saw your father?”

“A few months ago.” Another lie. The Academy’s file had no indication his father had ever visited, or that anyone had. What perplexed Tristan was that the lie was calculated, rehearsed. That was the answer he’d been told to give, not one born of wistfulness, something he’d observed in many people, across all species. This need to convince others reality was different, in the hopes of convincing themselves of the same.

“Cool. Do you have a picture of him?”

“Why?” Emil asked, “didn’t you meet him?”

“No, the contract came over the system. I got instructions to pick you up, and bring you to a location where your father would meet us. Now that we’ve been attacked, I want to make sure that when we do manage to meet, it’s really him.”

Emil nodded and began typing on the pad, his motions were sure and practiced, except for one moment, when he hesitated, barely glancing toward Tristan. When he was done he handed Tristan the pad. On it was a picture of a man with a long face, curly black hair and pale green eyes. He could see the resemblance between him and Emil, even though Emil’s hair was much paler and nowhere near as curly, and his eyes were blue. It was the shape of the face. The man in the picture could be an older version of Emil.

But this wasn’t Emil’s father. It wasn’t the man in the recording, with his dark brown hair with barely any wave to them, the blue eyes and square jaw. The resemblance between them was in the eyes, the same blue, the same intensity.

“I guess you can’t wait to see him again.” Tristan handed the pad back. “What does he do?”

“He’s a manager.”

Tristan almost laughed at the blatantness of the lie. No manager could afford to send a child to a place like Roswell.

“Where does he work? Maybe I can contact him there, make sure he knows you’re safe.”

There was a moment of hesitation. “He works for Vertix Industries.”

The company wasn’t familiar to him, but that only meant he hadn’t had to deal with them. There were too many companies in the universe for Tristan to know all of them. He wanted to ask for his father’s name, but Tristan couldn’t, not without revealing he hadn’t been hired by him.

Tristan wondered why the lies. It reminded him of Justin, who’d begun lying when he was about Emil’s size, but where his brother’s lies then hadn’t always made sense, Emil’s were structured. He was following a script, but for what situation? As far as the boy knew, they were taking him to his father, so why lie?

Tristan was confident the boy knew he was lying. It had been a conscious decision on his part to give him the wrong picture.

Tristan reached over and patted Emil on the shoulder. “I’m going to contact them, see if I can reach your father that way.”

Emil didn’t flinch at the contact. He wasn’t afraid of Tristan, but those eyes lacked trust.

“Me and my friend are going to take good care of you until you’re with your father.”

Emil gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

“What?”

Emil bit his lower lip, and now he looked nervous. “He isn’t your friend.”

“Who?”

“Aaron. He’s afraid of you.”

Tristan reconsidered this young man. Alex constantly gave away his fear, even when other emotions were involved. But he hadn’t expected someone else to notice the signs, and not someone as young as this, even if he was actually thirteen. He was probably six. There was just too much variance within human children for his liking.

“Are you afraid of me?”

Emil shook his head. “You haven’t done anything to me.”

Had Alex said something? Was that how Emil knew? But why would he do that? Alex wanted to protect the boy, and while it would make sense to warn an adult that Tristan was dangerous, all that would do with a child was scare him.

No, Emil had worked it out by himself. Was that why he’d lied? He wasn’t afraid, but he had realized that things weren’t as they seemed? Did he know they were his kidnappers? It seemed doubtful he could have jumped from the relationship between Tristan and Alex not being one of friendship to them being kidnappers.

Regardless, he was going to have to proceed carefully and find another way to get the boy to drop his guard and tell him the truth about his father. 

He didn’t want to have to rely on Alex as his only source of information. He didn’t believe he’d lie to him, but he had no idea how valid the information he’d find would be. Thomas Masters had carefully planned this, he was going to have multiple safeguards to protect himself and his plan.

He’d need the boy’s information to ensure was Alex found was true.

He gave Emil’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You have nothing to fear from me,” he lied.

Emil nodded.

“I’ll go check on Aaron and then you’ll probably have to go back in Cryo, okay?”

Emil nodded again, and Tristan left him to his math problems.