by Tammy Walsh
The audience got to their feet and cheered.
“Looks like I’m right,” Quus said through a mouth of grinning teeth. “So, was the love for real? Or was it all an act like the others?”
“None of it was an act,” I said. “I loved all those other girls. And they loved me. But it was more of a friendship kind of love than anything else—”
“I never treat my friends like that!” Quus said, leering at the camera. “If I did, my wife would kill me!”
The audience laughed.
“Sure,” I said. “But then, you weren’t forced into a situation where your life was on the line if you didn’t do what the program creators told you to,” I said. At least, that was what I wanted to say. Instead, I smiled politely. “But the love I felt for Maddy was real. You could never fake that. And I know she’s still out there somewhere. I know she’s waiting for me.”
“Aw,” the audience said, sighing with adulation.
I had them right where I wanted them. Now I was going to make them go weak at the knees.
I said, “The truth is—”
“Hold that thought,” Quus said. “You said you know she’s out there waiting for you. Are you saying you think she’s still alive?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m saying. You see—”
“But we all saw her get burnt to a crisp by those flames. How could she possibly have survived that?”
I read the presenter’s expression. He must have known Maddy was still alive—Iron Hoof had seen her and would have reported it back to Control.
That sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach returned with a vengeance.
“I didn’t mean literally alive,” I said. “I meant in spirit and soul.”
“Well, we’ve got a big surprise for you and the audience at home,” Quus said. “Maddy isn’t out there somewhere. She’s right here. In this studio.”
What. The. Hell.
He had to be joking.
The audience gasped with surprise that matched my own. I shifted on my chair.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean, she turned up about ten minutes ago. She didn’t die in that fiery blaze. She survived. She was captured by the evil Yayora barbarians. They were planning on sacrificing her before we discovered the location of their secret base—a live feed is coming up soon, by the way, folks. The Changeling siblings managed to rescue her. They’re bringing her up now. Let’s play the footage.”
The lights dimmed and the huge screen lowered into view. On it, in rough images, I could make out the surrounding desert landscape. Dark dots on the horizon walked slowly toward the camera.
Then, sometime later, the dots grew bigger, larger every minute.
Already, I knew it was her. I could tell by her sassy hip-swaying walk.
Then she was right there, up in the camera’s grill, along with the Changeling siblings in her wake. Her arms were restrained behind her back and the Changelings wore harsh expressions.
There was no denying it was them.
They must have escaped earlier when the Yayora took them from their cell and tracked her down.
My insides turned to water.
Iron Hoof shifted in his seat. He growled at the back of his throat. No love lost between him and the Changeling siblings.
The image skipped ahead as a team of Changeling soldiers stepped from behind an invisible wall. The cloaking device was still in operation. They scanned Maddy with handheld devices before moving on to the Changeling siblings. Their machines bleeped when they passed over their thighs. They took it for confirmation it was really them and waved them through.
Maddy had a determined expression on her face.
Determined about what? I wondered. We were both doomed. There was no getting away. There was no escape.
The final image depicted Maddy and her entourage stepping behind the cloaked wall and into the Control Room.
The lights faded up and the screen retracted into the ceiling.
The audience were on tenterhooks.
So was I.
Quus got to his feet.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I give you, Maddy!”
She garnered a much louder response from the audience than I did. I still couldn’t believe it was really her.
A single glance, and I knew the truth.
It was her.
And she was heading straight for me.
I couldn’t stay in my seat. I ran to her. She wrapped her arms around me. They’d removed her restraints for this very image. We were being exploited and I didn’t give a damn.
“What are you doing here?” I said. “Why are you here?”
“It was the only way,” she said.
I could see in her eyes there was more she wanted to say but she couldn’t do it. Not in front of so many eyes and ears.
We kissed. It was full-on and passionate and full of love.
If we wanted to play to the audience’s emotions, there was nothing we could do that was more powerful than this.
And I knew instinctively, it wasn’t going to work.
Neither would my earlier plan. It was a desperate attempt to reverse the track I was riding.
But there was no changing it.
The Changelings had a schedule to keep and they weren’t going to let a little thing like innocent people get in the way.
“All right, you crazy love birds,” Quus said. “Let’s get you over to the sofa and get some juicy details.”
I took Maddy by the hand and led her to my spot on the sofa.
With the last-minute preparations, there weren’t enough chairs, so the Changeling siblings took position behind us. Iron Hoof scowled at them.
“Wow,” Quus said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had anything like this happen before. How does it feel to be making Lovers’ Escape history right now?”
“It feels pretty great,” Maddy said.
I could smell her beside me, that intoxicating femininity I couldn’t resist. She was so close… and yet the moment this segment was over, so would we be.
“So, tell us, Maddy, what happened after that shuttlecraft explosion? We thought you were gone for good.”
Maddy spoke but I was distracted by her hand.
She tapped me on the back of the forearm, sending me a coded message. She was doing it right in front of the audience, the cameras, everybody…
And no one had any idea what it meant.
Except us.
PREPARE YOURSELF, she tapped.
FOR WHAT, I replied.
FOR FREEDOM
My mouth felt dry.
HOW, I tapped.
SIBLINGS NOT REALLY SIBLINGS
A shiver rose up my back. Not really siblings? What were they? Cousins? Or did she mean…
No…
I glanced at them out the corner of my eye. They looked the same, exactly as I remembered from when they adopted their Yayora disguises…
Except they seemed smaller and thicker around the chest.
But there was something in the flicker in one of their eyes…
Stari?
WE WILL LEAVE AND ESCAPE. TAKE OUT CONTROL ROOM AND TURN OFF DEFENSES
OKAY
I waited to see if there was anything else she wanted to add. When there wasn’t, I took her by the hand and squeezed it tight.
I’d risked my life to save hers, and now she was doing the same for me. I felt angry at her for throwing her life away, and proud of her all at the same time.
This woman drove me crazy!
Quus pressed a finger to his ear and turned to address the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we sure have an action-packed show for you tonight,” he said. “Right now, we’re getting footage of the destruction in the Yayora base. We’ve got a live feed. We should be getting an image any second now…”
Maddy reached a hand back and placed it on the Changeling siblings’ hands on the sofa headrest. They gripped it so tight, their fingertips turned white. They
’d been working on the base their entire lives. It was what was supposed to help them defeat their conquerors and move on with their lives. To see it in the state it was currently in…
Stari stared at the screen without blinking.
The images flicked on and presented a thick cloud of dust. A beam of light switched on and made the cloud grow brighter and even more difficult to see.
“As you can see, folks, the destruction is pretty much complete,” Quus said. “There’s not much chance of any survivors emerging from an explosion like that.”
He provided running commentary as the images shifted through parts of the base I couldn’t identify.
But Stari and her buddy could.
I hoped they could control themselves—at least until we got off the stage. Then they could go haywire and destroy as much of the Control Room as they wanted. I wouldn’t stand in their way.
“Hold up,” Quus said. “What was that back there?”
The camera swept along the debris to a row of dead Yayora bodies.
The audience gasped.
“There, you see, ladies and gentlemen,” Quus said. “That’s what happens when an inferior species thinks they can overpower the might of the Changeling empire.”
“We’ve got a fresh one here,” a voice on the monitor said.
“And here, another,” another worker said.
The camera turned to reveal a group of Changeling excavators working to free a pair of bodies from the soil.
Maddy’s hand tightened painfully around mine. Her eyes boggled.
She’d seen something. When I checked over my shoulder, I saw Stari had tensed too.
I turned back to the screen.
What? What had they seen that I hadn’t?
Iron Hoof’s lips curled back from his teeth in what I assumed was meant to be a smile. He loved seeing those dead bodies. I guessed his only regret was that he hadn’t been the one to cause them.
The workers on the screen dug the dirt away and pulled the pair of creatures from the piles of dirt. They laid them beside the other dead Yayora bodies. The two bodies were roughly the same size. Their faces were mirror reflections of each other with small differences between them.
Twins.
They wore soiled contestant uniforms.
A deathly hush filled the studio as the same thought passed through their minds.
“Wait,” Quus said, “aren’t they the…”
He let the sentence hang.
Aren’t they the Changeling siblings?
That’s what he wanted to say.
But the words never reached his lips.
He turned, slowly, to peer at the Changeling siblings standing behind the sofa on his talk show.
The audience was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
“You’re not the Changeling siblings?” Quus said.
A broad grin spread across the Changeling siblings’ faces.
“Afraid not,” Stari said.
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Iron Hoof stood up from his seat and reached for his blaster pistol.
Stari had the jump on him and fired first. At such close proximity, the plasma ate through his armor and burst through the other side, slamming into a set of lights that fell from the ceiling and smashed to the floor. The audience members barely managed to leap out of the way.
Iron Hoof pressed a hand to the hole in his chest and then slumped to his knees. He collapsed into a messy pile on the floor.
The fake Klang leveled his blaster at the presenter, who raised his hands.
“I’m just a pawn!” he said. “I just do what I’m told.”
“So do I,” the fake Klang said.
He pulled the trigger. Quus slumped forward in his chair. His green blood flowed from the open wound in his chest.
It was pandemonium after that.
I didn’t have it in me to gun down innocent members of the audience—even if they were complicit in the murder of countless alien species for their entertainment.
I didn’t have the same issue with the Changeling soldiers that rushed into the studio. We fired back at them and took off into the backstage area. We weaved between the stagehands that tore their headphones off and bolted for the nearest exit.
It was nice to see them with a little terror in their eyes for a change.
“We need to get to the Control Room!” Stari said. “Where is it?”
“This way!” I said.
I led them toward an exit. Two Changeling soldiers burst in with their pistols drawn. Stari and her comrade dispatched them with ease.
I took the opportunity to wrap my arm around Maddy’s waist and draw her to me. I planted my lips on hers for another taste.
“I love you, my soul mate,” I said.
She smiled.
“I love you too,” she said.
“Come on!” Stari said. “There’s time for that later!”
“Maybe not,” her Yayora comrade said. “We could die any second.”
He wrapped his arm around Stari and kissed her full on the lips.
Stari blinked rapidly in surprise. Then, belatedly, slapped him across the face.
He pressed a hand to his cheek.
“I thought you liked me…” he said.
“I do,” she said. “It’s just… Oh, to hell with it.”
She kissed him so hard, she almost knocked him off his feet.
“Can we continue with the mission now?” Stari said.
“Yes, sir,” the guy said.
I glanced at Maddy for an explanation.
“It’s… complicated,” she said. “This is V’Sen, by the way.”
“I believe we’ve already met,” I said.
We ran through the door, along the hallway, and then up three flights of stairs. It might not be the fastest route but it was the only one I knew.
We reached the Control Room. We could see the production crew busy at work through the tall glass walls. Probably trying to figure out what was going on.
A bolt of plasma zinged past my ear and over my shoulder.
Stari and V’Sen dropped and opened fire.
I grabbed Maddy by the hand and led her toward the Control Room. Once we reached it, we turned and provided cover fire for the others to join us.
We bolted up the stairs and entered the first production floor. The workers were so busy they didn’t notice us enter.
Stari grabbed a chair and jammed it under the door. An advanced alien civilization and they still performed the old shove-a-chair-under-the-door routine.
“Which machine is responsible for defenses?” Maddy said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t we ask?”
I fired a shot across the room. It burnt a hole in the window. The workers screamed at the intrusion and turned to face us.
“Excuse me,” I said. “We’re looking for the defense controls. We want to disable everything you have. Right now.”
A Changeling with a stiff gait marched toward me.
“You can’t be in here!” he said. “You don’t have the proper clearance!”
“We have a selfless volunteer,” I said.
I aimed the pistol at his face.
“If someone doesn’t tell me what I want to know right now, your friend is going to get a new eyehole,” I said.
The workers were silent. Then they turned to one worker at a far corner computer.
“Everybody up!” I said. “Get over here!”
I marshaled them to one side. By now, the rest of the workers on the other floors had begun to gather around, peering down at us to watch a show they had no control over.
Half a dozen plasma bolts struck the door on the other side. It was reinforced and did not give easily.
Stari and V’Sen covered the door and prepared to open retaliatory fire. It was only a matter of time before they got in.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast!” Stari said.
“How do I turn the defenses off?” Mad
dy said to the worker sat in his chair.
“Just destroy it!” I yelled.
“Good idea,” Maddy said.
She took aim and opened fire on the machine. Unlike the door, it was not reinforced. She blasted half a dozen holes in it before the lights began to flash and warnings flared on the monitors.
“What’s happening?” Maddy said.
Through the windows, lights flickered and the world reformed into fractal images.
The Changeling soldiers outside must have noticed it too as they slowed their attack on the door.
The geometric shapes flashed purple, yellow, blue, and green, then shattered completely. It was only then I realized it wasn’t the world that was flashing in every color of the rainbow. It was the Control Room’s camouflage technology.
“Is it down?” Stari said. “Is it over?”
I kept my gun trained on the workers and edged toward the window to peer at the world below.
“The defenses are down,” I said. “But it’s not over. It’s only just begun.”
The Yayora, upon seeing the disintegration of the Control Room’s defenses, came running over the horizon in our direction. A swarming mass of natives that just got their chance to take back what was taken from them.
Their homeworld.
V’Sen eased the door open and peered out at the Changeling soldiers on the other side. He yanked it open and kept his blaster pistol raised.
“What are you doing?” Stari said.
He raised a hand for her to be quiet. Before them were two dozen Changeling soldiers. They stared at the horizon, at the endless horde of Yayora rushing their way.
The thoughts running through their minds were easy enough to read.
Did they want to fight them? Did they want them to tear them to pieces? Or was it better to surrender now?
The soldiers put down their arms and raised their hands.
Stari watched as her enemy, those who had treated her nothing better than a serf her entire life, surrendered to her.
Tears sprung into her eyes and she wrapped her arms around V’Sen.
One of the Changelings eyed a pistol on the ground and looked about ready to try his chances and scoop it up.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Maddy said, her pistol right up in his grill.