While I couldn’t say exactly what happened after I lost consciousness, I did know what happened once I awoke strapped to a gurney-like thing, unable to move my arms, legs, or any of my body. They had us bolted down mercilessly, and all of my limbs were tingling from the tightness of the bonds.
I had missed the part where we exited the ship, waking up in the back of a transport craft with a dozen or so soldiers sitting all around us, weapons pointed at our little tables.
I tried to move my neck what little I could, seeing if I could find Mimi among our number, but I could only really catch a glimpse of Eske to one side and Bahn to the other. None of us were talking, and I didn’t know if that was because I was the only one conscious or because we were all equally defeated by the current situation. Had they all been knocked out like me? Or had they been apprehended more peacefully than me? And what had they shot me with? It wasn’t electricity, but it wasn’t a light beam either. If anything, it had seemed like some sort of concussive force.
While it was unpleasant, it let me know that they needed me—or us—alive, and couldn’t risk mortal injury. Which, while it didn’t seem most important at the moment, it gave me a certain sense of comfort to know that for now I wasn’t expendable.
The hover-craft we were in finally stopped, and the soldiers all stood, their glares intense. The door at the end of the cabin slid open, and for a moment, I was blinded by the light. When my eyes finally did adjust, I saw we were in some sort of hangar bay. It was different from the one where we had hijacked the warship, with brighter lights and far fewer ships. As we were rolled out, I noticed the ceilings were lower, and the room wasn’t nearly as large.
They rolled us down the walkway, and we hit ground none too gently. I didn’t expect much from the soldiers considering how peeved they were at us, but I also didn’t expect the jostling to be so disconcerting. But I guessed how tightly we were strapped down was amplifying every move we made.
We continued rolling, moving out of the bay and into an overly bright hallway. We passed by several doors, and I saw soldiers stationed at each one.
At least these guys offered a little variation. There were both male and female soldiers, with uniforms indicating different ranks and jobs. Their weapons were decidedly different too. Were the soldiers on the ship specially outfitted to deal with us? That was…interesting.
After going down the hall a bit, we turned abruptly to the left, and they wheeled us into a room with a chair in the center and a table full of equipment next to it.
But as we turned, my eyes caught several more soldiers moving something past the door. It was a large container with what looked like several shield emitters on top, and I could see some sort of smoky figure within the liquid.
“Mimi?” I asked.
The door slammed shut and my view was cut off before I could see any more detail, but I was sure that the container held Mimi. There was no other answer that made sense! I needed to know where they were taking her, but I very much doubted that they planned on telling me anything.
Perhaps I should just focus on the room that we were in now, because the soldiers were moving, arranging our beds into a neat little line.
“Ready for processing,” the soldier said, pressing a button to the comms.
“Affirmative. Sending personnel now.”
And then we just…waited.
A few minutes passed by, and then a few more, and then two more workers in scrubs with aprons over them came in.
“We were called down for processing?” the smaller of them said, a female, but that was about all I could see of her considering her head was completely covered by a hairnet and part of her face was obscured by a silicone medical mask.
“Yes. These four. They’re hostile.”
“Who, me?” Ciangi countered, and I could practically hear her batting her eyes at them. “I’m far too cute to be hostile.”
The worker gave her a look before walking over to the table.
“Alright, put one of them in the chair and we’ll get this started.”
“Get what started, exactly?” I asked, feeling more than a bit apprehensive.
But no one answered me. Instead, they wheeled my gurney over to the chair, one of them reaching below me to press something that turned my horizontal bed completely vertical. Then they pressed something else that released all of my bonds at once and suddenly, I was toppling forward, my limbs solidly asleep.
The soldiers caught me, which surprised me a bit. I had definitely expected them to let me smack into the hard floor like a sack of potatoes. Together, they maneuvered me into the chair, then closed more bonds around my torso, wrists, and ankles.
The shackles definitely stung against my raw skin, which was even angrier at all the different restraints I’d been stuck in since my capture. I was pretty sure we were all going to have scarring when we got out.
Assuming we got out.
I shook my head, trying to get that idea out. I couldn’t afford to be pessimistic. I had to believe that we would make it through no matter what, but it was hard to remain positive when they were pulling my hair-tie from my low ponytail.
“What are you doing?” I asked, jerking violently away from their touch. I didn’t like the sensation of people interacting with my hair. It made my skin crawl and set me on edge. Even cutting it myself often agitated me, which was why I had let it grow so long in the first place.
“Calm down, inmate. You’re being processed.”
I saw them pick up a reverberating blade with a bag attached to it to catch the fallout. I knew what that was for and my whole body went cold.
“Get away from me!” I ordered, jerking against my restraints. The whole world was starting to get…prickly, and I just needed to get away.
Several beeps sounded from above my head and the closest of the masked workers cursed. “What’s going on? This isn’t a usual reaction.”
The other one pulled something up on their data-log. “Ah, it says he’s got some sensory issues. We’ll need to sedate him.”
“Or you could just stop what you’re doing!” I heard Ciangi cry from her bed. “You’re really gonna torture a blind woman, a neuro-divergent janitor, and a couple of eggheads? Just a couple of winners, aren’t ya?”
“Relax,” one of them told me, bringing an injector up to my arm. Before I could wrap my mind around what was happening, they pressed it to my arm and I was slipping off into oblivion.
I wasn’t out for long, or at least it didn’t seem like long. My mouth wasn’t nearly as dry as it usually was after an extended bought of unconsciousness. Also…it was probably a bit sad that I had been knocked out often enough to know that.
But when I came to, I was in a cell not too different from the one I had been captured and put into nearly a year ago.
“Ugh, this is the worst case of déjà vu I’ve ever had,” I said, picking myself up off the floor.
My entire body hurt, and my head was hazy, but I managed to get upright without falling over. Blinking, I took inventory of myself, noting that I was no longer cuffed or shackled or any other form of restrained. That was a relief. And it seemed that my wrists and ankles had been appropriately cleaned and bandaged.
I stretched, feeling my body snap, crackle, and pop, but when I reached up toward my head, I realized something was horribly amiss.
That was when my memories came rushing back to me and my entire organ system lurched. My hair! My hair!
Instead of long, long tresses that made me feel like an ancient Viking, or Celt warrior, I was buzzed completely bald. The sensation of smooth scalp was uncomfortable, and I found myself wanting to spiral again.
I tried to breathe deeply, looking around for anything that might help my mind stop hyper-fixating on the change and let myself focus on what mattered. I was pretty much in a big, empty box, with nothing but three walls and a forcefield around me.
“Hey there, Higgens, you okay?”
I looked toward the sound of the voice to
see blue eyes staring from the cell across the hall from me. I looked at them dumbly, my brain trying to figure out who they were, before I realized it was Ciangi.
“They cut your hair…” I murmured, unsure of what emotion was even in my voice. While she wasn’t buzzed completely bald like me, her hair was about one knuckle-joint in length and had turned into a soft halo of mini curls around her head.
“They cut all of our hair, buddy. Are you okay?”
I took a minute to think about it. A lot had gone wrong in a very short amount of time and my mind was trying to catch up. I knew there was a whole lot worse that could have happened, but this seemed pretty terrible.
I looked to Ciangi again and noticed something else different about her. “On your neck. Is that a bruise?” I squinted, trying to see more clearly, but she was too far away and there were two blue-hued shields between us.
“It’s not a bruise, actually. I got to watch them lay one on you and it’s a sort of an electromagnetic tattoo. They just slapped it on all of us like cattle.”
I reached up to my own neck, and I did find that there was an unusually smooth spot, like it had been shaved of my natural body hair and glossed over. “What on Earth is the point of all this?”
“Well, the hair, I would guess demoralization. It’s been proven that altering someone’s hair against their will is a way to exercise control and reshape identities. It shows the victim that their body is not their own.
“As for the tattoo, I’m sure that same demoralization plays a part in it, making us feel more like property, but if I had to put money on it, I would guess that they have a specific electromagnetic isotope in them to allow them to track us, on the off chance that we should escape.”
I… I couldn’t believe it. We really had been branded like cattle, and even if we did get out, they would know where we were. There would be no hiding, even if we left the mimic’s planet.
“How are the others?” I asked.
“Eske’s still asleep.”
“They knocked her out too?”
“Yeah, apparently coming at a nearly blind person with blades can trigger a panic attack. Who knew, right?”
It made sense. Eske always had fun making multiple hair styles since we had been together and had taught many of the mimics how to braid and make other elaborate styles. Losing that was probably like losing a crown to her.
“And what about Bahn?”
She sighed. “Bahn is…trying to come to terms with what happened. He didn’t cut his hair for religious purposes, and now that’s been forcibly taken away from him. It’s hard for him not to feel like he’s been separated from his God.”
I let out a long breath. “Any sign of Mimi?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. They didn’t knock me out, so I tried to observe everything I could, but I didn’t catch a glimpse of her at all.”
I slid to the floor, what little strength I had left fading fast. “What are we gonna do, Ciangi?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly, sighing not too differently from me. “But we have to believe we’re going to make it. We’ve been in worse situations before and gotten out of them. Heck, this isn’t even our first time in prison!”
“I know,” I murmured. “But somehow, it feels so much worse.”
“Yeah… Yeah, it does.”
With nothing more to say, the two of us fell silent. Although I tried to steel myself and stay strong, I felt hope quickly fading from me.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
8
Chat with Old Friends
We were given no blankets, no pillows to speak of, and yet I still managed to fall asleep. Maybe I was just that tired, or maybe my mind needed an escape from everything it had endured in the past couple of days. Or weeks. It was strange to think that less than a month ago, I was home on the mimic world just blithely going through life, never knowing that we were about to be betrayed by one of our own kind.
When I awoke, I half-hoped that it had been some horrible nightmare, but no, I was still in the cell with Ciangi across from me. I could see slightly into the cell next to her as well, but I could only catch the edge of Eske’s elbow where she was huddled on the ground.
I’d forgotten that she hadn’t been imprisoned like we had when we were first betrayed by Earth. This was an entirely new experience for her and I certainly didn’t envy that.
I opened my mouth to give her some tips, so maybe I could make her stay a little easier, but before I could, there was the sound of a door opening not too far away and multiple sets of footsteps approached us.
It didn’t take long for them to reach our cells, and of course it was none other than one of the generals that had initially broken the pact with us. His face was still just as red and squashed, and the look he gave me was one of utter disdain.
“I bet you thought you would never see me again,” he said, voice low and raspy.
“I certainly hoped so,” I answered slowly, minding my words. As much as I hated the man before me, I needed to tread carefully. “Sadly, it seems that wasn’t meant to be.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re real sad, but this is just the beginning. We have all of you now, and you’re going to face the trial of the century for what you’ve done.”
“Really?” Ciangi scoffed from her cell. “You want us to buy that you brought us back purely for some litigation? I know you think we’re idiots, but we’re not that stupid.”
“Aren’t you?” he countered. “You’re the ones who were moronic enough to be betrayed by one of their own kind, a child, who’d been sentient for less than a year. We didn’t even have to give them much. All they wanted was you gone and some simplistic weaponry. The best deal we’ve ever cut, if I’m honest.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ciangi continued. Although she was being flippant, I could tell there was something underlying it. A type of rage that I hadn’t seen in her in a very long time, seething just under her skin and her honeysuckle smile. “You wanna stop with all the chitchat to hype yourself up and get to what you need from us, or are we going to stick with the useless posturing thing?”
He turned away from me to glare at Ciangi. “If you want to rush things, fine. I believe we have our first volunteer for interrogation.”
“Interrogation?” she countered, crossing her arms. “How gullible do you think I am? Unlike this place, our world knowledge is open to anyone and everyone. There are no secrets. Anything that we know, Mari knows, so there’s nothing you’re gonna learn from any of us.”
The general faltered for a moment, and even I caught the surprise across his features. However, while it made me curious, it made Ciangi outright howl with laughter.
“Oh man, she snowed you!” The words were nearly impossible to make out between her peals of laughter, but I managed to make out what she meant. “She played dumb and you totally bought it!”
The general was bristling now, and his angry, bulbous eyes scanned over all of us. “She said she was young, that she’d only had time to learn so much.”
“I mean, yeah, that’s true in the sense that she probably couldn’t tell you about theoretical physics or how to build a sub-light engine, but when it comes to her planet and its defenses, she’s one of our lead mimics who helps on those projects.”
Now he was turning several shades ranging from red to outright purple, and his soldier escorts were exchanging nervous glances. “We will deal with her indiscretions later! For now, we have you, so your knowledge will suffice. Take her.”
The soldiers moved forward, as if they were going to hit the button to drop the shield to Ciangi’s cell, but before they could, a high-pitched wail pierced through the relatively quiet hall, causing all of us to clap our hands over our ears to try to protect ourselves from the shrill alarm.
Hello? Sorry about that. Got the wrong frequency.
The familiar voice on his comm made us freeze. None of us reacted for a moment, my heart seeming to stop beating right in my chest. �
��Gonzales?” I whispered.
“Who the hell are you?” the general bellowed, turning this way and that. “Show yourself!”
Dude, I am obviously coming through your comm. And are you telling me you don’t remember me? I’m almost hurt.
“Gonzales!” Ciangi cried, rushing to the very edge of her cell. “Is that you?”
You bet your bottom dollar it is. Sorry for the delay. It took me a while to find you guys.
“How did you even know we had been taken?”
Don’t worry about it. All you need to know for now is that I’m coming for you. Oh, and, General? You might want to recheck your security grid, considering I was able to hack into this and I’m just a weapons engineer, not a system specialist.
Oh, and you can totally go kick some moon rocks while you’re at it.
His comm went dead and we were all left standing there, not quite sure what to do. While Ciangi, Bahn, Eske, and I were suddenly filled with a hope that we hadn’t had since this whole thing started, the general was practically vibrating with unchecked rage.
“This. Isn’t. Over,” he managed to spit before turning on his heel and screaming orders to his escort. It was too difficult to repress a laugh as they rushed out, no doubt to hurriedly scramble through their defenses, so I just let myself bellow as loudly as my mind needed.
“That was certainly unexpected,” Bahn said, the first time he had spoken since we were processed.
“Is it?” Eske murmured, sitting up in her cell. “I don’t know about you, but this seems exactly like something Gonzales would do.”
“You know what? You’re right.” I said, crossing to the back of the room and sitting down. “So, I guess now all we have to do is wait. Whatever they throw at us, whatever they try to throw at Gonzales, she’ll have us free and kicking.”
Too bad that was never really my strong suit.
9
Mimic: The Space Shifter Chronicles Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 46