AMNESIA

by Canada Jackson

  Whyle smiled at him. “There are 20 scientists; the rest are wives, their children, and grandchildren. I cannot relocate sad, embittered, and angry men. They would not be helpful to me as slaves. Much like Shihlo, I want them to be able to focus, and even as unevolved as you may consider them, they do have feelings.”

  Wrexel sighed. “Never did I assume that this mission would include these tiresome negotiations with these dimwitted natives. Yet I have done it… for the House of the White.” He saluted Whyle’s epaulet sarcastically.

  “You will do well to remember this, Whyle, when you think my ways… inappropriate.”

  Whyle frowned. “Truth be told, Wrexel, the process has been moving forward more smoothly than imagined, with a few minor issues that were being easily solved; it is your irritation and lack of respect for them that has stood in the way at times. Considering they are giving us continued life on Throm, it’s the very least we can do.”

  “Until the Monarch fucks it up again,” Wrexel interjected.

  Whyle sighed. “Shihlo is setting measures in control to ensure Gilroth is firmly restricted to minor domestic rulings that are not hazardous to all of Throm, and you ensured his Red army growth was recently downscaled. It would help if you would remember we are doing our best to govern him without upsetting Thromian politics and by growing our support ethically and with minimal loss of Thromian life.”

  Wrexel leaned back and eyed his cousin with disdain. “Does it not irk you, Whyle, to wake up every day wondering how the Monarch is going to sodomize your plans to stabilize Throm? It must be exhausting to bend over in waiting.”

  Whyle appeared highly affronted but then his eyes narrowed with cunning. “It is indeed stressful coping with his plotting, so would you have objections to me asking the young female to dine with me once they are on board, to alleviate my angst?”

  “Which female?” Wrexel frowned.

  “The betrothed Earthling who has you staring and making up bogus dinners to ensure you get to see her again.”

  It had been a long time since Wrexel had indulged in a good Thromian fistfight with his cousin but he knew that Whyle was teasing.

  “Touché, my wily cousin. I admit the little human has me intrigued and, no, I would not appreciate any competition.”

  “Just so you know, if my Rix is not on a secret mission as you claim and is hurt in any way, emotionally or otherwise, I will pay you back with the Earthling woman.”

  * * *

  Wrexel was finally ready to celebrate the end of a tiresome parade of visitors when his entry door opened once more to reveal his ex-lover, Baerra.

  Dear God, his quarters were a gathering place for every annoyance that night! Irritation flooded his mind.

  “Stop right there,” he told her. “I’m not in the mood.”

  Their affair had been over for a while. She was just having a hard time accepting it.

  “Tomorrow, Wrexel?”

  He shook his head. “We ended on good terms; let’s keep it that way.”

  Baerra stormed to the door. “I would be more tolerant of this rebuttal if I knew another Thromian woman took my place, but there is talk that you are attracted to a human?”

  Wrexel stared at her and shrugged. “And?”

  “That has never been your taste. Are you that bored with all of Throm that you wish to indulge in something abhorred?”

  “What I decide to do with my free time is none of your concern.”

  “You need to lead by example; half of your Thromian personnel on board the evacuating vessels are indulging in Earth females. It’s disgusting.”

  “Have there been any complaints, any women lodging grievances for untoward attention?” he asked.

  “No…”

  “Then I don’t care.”

  Baerra stormed out, and he locked the door, returning to devious plans for Amber.

  15

  Sacrifice

  Travis sat in the lounge in silence with Amber’s father.

  He had gone from yelling to pleading on the communicator that lay on the table before him. No Thromian responded.

  All the negotiators had retired to their families, to spend the last few hours of life with them. World leaders opted for the same, as no message would be beneficial to the masses.

  Hysteria would follow in the morning when the evacuees returned to tell their story. There was little that could be done to prevent the chaos that would ensue.

  Travis had not revealed the threat he levelled at Wrexel and he prayed it would not come out. Not that it mattered now…

  The negotiating team fully believed Wrexel had become irritated with their demands and had canceled the deal. They held the fall of current Earth on all their shoulders. Travis’s threat was unknown. He was too ashamed to reveal his role, even to James. The clock seemed to tick louder to remind them of the time they had left.

  Midnight.

  Midnight was when he said the first load of evacuees would be returned.

  This would be the moment when hysteria would prevail upon her beautiful planet.

  Amber watched Travis fold before her in horror. She was both devastated and ashamed. Wrexel had charmed her in a way that now made her cringe. He was a beast, a predator with no moral code, a deviant. How she had been so sadistically attracted to a creature of destruction was just another reminder that she was ill-equipped in life skills.

  “I should have realized what I was dealing with. I have never seen him show any kind of emotion… except this last act of anger… he may as well be a robot,” Travis cried.

  Amber looked away.

  There was a side to Wrexel the others did not know about.

  His desire for her had shown he was not a completely unemotional beast.

  There were facets of his character that Travis and his negotiators could not comprehend because they had not witnessed them.

  However, she had.

  She was certain the dinners had been for her benefit. She knew Wrexel wasn’t lying when he said he did not care for their rights as humans. Therefore, his only reason for inviting the spouses back to be involved in the reallocation discussions had to have been her.

  If negotiations continued, there would have been more meetings between them.

  Somehow, she had piqued his interest.

  This idea returned to her constantly throughout the evening.

  Amber chewed nervously on her lower lip.

  Wrexel’s interest in her was more than alien curiosity… he wanted her as a man wants a woman and she needed to face this as she chose her next steps.

  She realized that although it filled her with dread and fear, they had shared that moment on the ship for a reason. She had an insight into Wrexel that nobody else had. Maybe she could use his attraction and interest to persuade him to return to negotiations with them. To have Travis and James look at her with respect for once; to have them say she did something intelligent and amazing would be heady. She returned from every political and work function to debriefs with Travis about the things she should have said differently. She was never good enough, always in need of assistance to fine tune her future role as a worthy partner to a man in high office.

  What if, just this once, he looked at her with admiration?

  She would have to meet with Wrexel alone, though, for Travis would never allow her to do it without his intervention. Her stomach knotted in anxiety when she considered this, and she told herself she just wasn’t up for the task. Sleep would not come and she began to feel slightly hysterical as she went down to the kitchen for some water.

  Her mother, Lilith, waited for her.

  Not now, please not now.

  She needed her mind to be clear for her last few days on Earth. She did not want to spend the time she had left having a mental relapse. She moved to the cabinet and checked her plastic container.

  She withdrew the tablets and swallowed them.

  Keeping her back to Lilith.

  * * *

  Amber took
a deep breath minutes later, hoping they had taken quick effect but her mom still hovered, beckoning to her.

  “You are not real,” she whispered repeatedly as her mother became even more apparent in the room. The wispy vision began to fill with detail that Amber had never seen before and she frowned when small, green, worm-like tendrils of light wound around her.

  “You’re not real.” She wiped the tears that fell from her cheeks with unsteady hands, hating that her visions were not only becoming stronger but also morphing in strange ways.

  Her level of insanity was increasing.

  “Go to him,” her mother replied, moving toward her. “Call him, he is summoned to protect you, he will listen, he will do your bidding for he cannot refuse. He will give you everything you truly need and more.”

  “You’re not real.” Amber sobbed.

  “Call him… he will give you anything you ask.”

  She slowly faded away and Amber sighed with relief.

  She sat alone with her thoughts for a while, and then, when she had cognizance of the fact that it was her last night on Earth, she decided that she had little to lose.

  If he rejected her, it wouldn’t matter. They were all going to die.

  She slipped into the kitchen and picked up Travis’s abandoned communicator.

  “This is Amber.” Her voice shook.

  “I want to speak to Wrexel, please,” she begged and then lay the communicator down on the table with a shudder.

  She stared at the device as if it were a sleeping snake. Wrexel was a beast about to rape their planet and stand by while they died and she had asked to sit and talk with him. Amber with zero political flair, a failure at every attempt to act in the way that Travis required.

  Seconds ticked by.

  I can’t do it… she admitted to herself in horror and reached forward slowly. She would grasp the communicator and throw it into the kitchen sink; water would destroy it and even if he did respond, nobody would know about her moment of pure insanity.

  She withdrew her hand.

  Would they experience pain when the asteroid hit or would she be dead when they extracted what they needed?

  The beeping tone of response sounded clearly in the quiet kitchen.

  Fear slammed into her body with brutal force.

  “What do you want, Amber?”

  She was now firmly in the lion’s den.

  No turning back.

  The instructions were clear about their meeting. Amber knew that if she told Travis what she had done, he would put a stop to it immediately, so this was something she had to do alone. She left him a note that she was going to plead with Wrexel and explained that he had agreed to hear one last petition, but only from her. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. She was pale, wan, and terrified. She needed to change if she wanted his respect.

  She looked down at the white dress she wore and then changed into a black one, feeling too much like a lamb for slaughter. It showed her cleavage. Travis would have told her immediately it was the wrong outfit to wear. However, Travis hadn’t seen Wrexel’s warm appraisal of her.

  If he was entranced by her appearance, perhaps she could hold his interest and make him listen. It was a dangerous ploy and Amber had no time for women using their bodies for attention, but Wrexel had admired her curves enough times for her to know he was intrigued by the difference between her body and those of the muscular Thromian females.

  She jumped when Sam entered the room, her cheeks streaked with tears.

  Amber experienced immediate guilt. Despite Travis deciding that Sam was too young to know anything, Amber had confided in her.

  “Where are you going?” she whispered.

  Amber hugged her closely. “He’s agreed to see me.”

  “Who?”

  “Their leader; I believe in my heart he will give us another chance.”

  “And Travis…”

  “Does not know,” Amber added quickly and Sam nodded.

  It would be one of the many secrets they shared.

  “Say nothing,” she begged and Sam agreed, kissing her goodbye.

  “Are you going to be okay? I mean, he won’t hurt you?”

  “No, of course not,” Amber lied, for she wasn’t entirely sure how the evening would pan out; but she still had to try.

  * * *

  Amber’s hands shook as she drove to the NASA grounds that stood empty after housing several transporters just hours before. She had a low-level security entrance and comforted herself with the fact that she may not be allowed entry and could tell Travis how she had intended so much, but had failed. She held her card to the guard in shaking hands and his eyes flashed from it to her face.

  “You have full clearance, Miss Jacobs.” He showed her where to drive next. Amber stopped her car at the final guard post, the one that would allow her entry into the strip where the craft would be. She eyed the guard hopefully.

  “Miss Jacobs?” He checked her low-level NASA card and frowned at her curiously.

  “Is everything okay, miss?” He noted her violently trembling hand that took the card back from him.

  “Yes.” She barely got the words out and for a second she wanted to throw herself at the human and sob out her predicament.

  “We were advised of this high-level meeting just a short while ago.” He opened her door, adding that it was top secret. Amber climbed out of her car with shaking legs, her eyes riveted to the lone ship in the dark night. The blazing emblem shone eerily in the moonlight as it stood in the center of the transportation area.

  The guard caught her elbow when she stumbled; sweat had pooled underneath her feet and she slid in her own heels. Amber looked down at her black dress and high-heeled sandals. I should have stayed with the white robe of sacrifice, she thought with a shudder.

  One last chance to run.

  “Miss?” The guard did not look pleased. “Are you here of your own free will?”

  “Of course,” she replied immediately, and he visibly relaxed.

  “This is as far as I may go.”

  The guard released her elbow and Amber turned to him with a slightly open mouth, wanting to say so much but realizing that it was now too late, and nothing she said would make any difference.

  “Are you sure that everything is okay, miss?” The guard became uncomfortable with the wide- eyed slaughterhouse look that she projected.

  She nodded again, mumbling words to placate his curiosity.

  She stopped about 20 feet from the transporter.

  The door opened upward and steps descended with a slight hiss.

  It reminded her of a serpent and heightened her terror, but she had come this far and there was no turning back.

  Travis felt groggy at first, but when the words of the guard registered, he sat bolt upright. “Can you repeat that?” he demanded.

  “I escorted the young Miss Jacobs to the royal ship as ordered, sir, but despite her reassurances, the meeting seemed out of place,” he repeated.

  “I apologize if this call is… inappropriate, but I wanted some reassurance.”

  Travis’s eyes darted around the room urgently. He moved quickly into the kitchen and the lounge, calling Amber so loudly he woke up her father.

  He saw the note lying upon the kitchen table next to the communicator. Severing the connection with the guard who had no more information for him, he read it with a sinking heart.

  Travis, I think there is one other way we can make this work.

  Please forgive me for not giving you more details right now.

  I’ll explain everything later.

  I love you.

  Amber.

  Travis picked up the communicator and patched through to his second in command. “Derrick?” Thank God, it still worked for them on Earth.

  “Yes, Travis.”

  “What in God’s name is going on?”

  He waited for Derrick to ask what he meant, but his heart sank when he spoke immediately of Amber. “Travis, I was give
n very clear instructions. If I wanted one last chance that his decision would be reversed, I would grant her full security clearance at NASA and I was to tell nobody.”

  Travis closed his eyes in horror. “Not even me?”

  “He said specifically not you.”

  Travis sat down; did they know what he had done, his role in this debacle of death?

  “What does he want from Amber? How did she get in touch with him?” he asked instead.

  “I don’t know, Travis; I thought that maybe Amber had made a significant friend during her visits to the ship, perhaps the female she sat with at dinner?”

  Travis searched through the events of the past weeks in his mind, his eyes darting across the table to Amber’s note.

  “Dear God, Derrick, you have given a very young and inexperienced woman full security clearance to meet with a demon tonight.”

  “What else do we have to lose, Travis?” Derrick remained adamant. “Amber will be dead along with the rest of us in less than a few days.”

  “Whom is she seeing? Is it definitely Wrexel who contacted you?” Travis wondered if her friendship with Rix was more than he perceived; they must have spent a total of two or three hours together. Was that enough for two women to forge a rapport that could defy the instructions of the king’s son?

  He ran his fingers through his hair with a shuddering sigh. Could he even begin to hope that perhaps Amber had called on Rix and had found an ally and a way to plead with Wrexel one more time on their behalf? What was she thinking? She would never handle a situation like this correctly.

  “The instructions came directly from Wrexel himself.”

  “Wrexel?”

  “Yes. Travis, are you listening? I’m telling you the only reason I agreed to this was because it was at Wrexel’s request.”

  Travis pleaded for Derrick to let him know if he heard anything more and then paced across the room after ordering Amber’s father to calm down and give him space to think.