by Bianca D’Arc
She thought she understood Ruth a little better now. Jaci could easily see the love Ruth had for her baby. It was on her face every time she looked at Samantha. Caleb O’Hara’s note had helped Ruth find love for the life inside her, for Caleb O’Hara had foreseen the baby was Sam’s and not the result of rape. Once Ruth believed that, she became interested in her pregnancy and in the child she bore nine months later.
“Something’s different about you, Jaci, but I can’t figure out what it is.” It was Ruth who first noticed the changes in Jaci as she moved about the small cell doing routine health checks on both mother and child.
Jaci’s breath caught. She knew the pens were monitored closely, but she also held the control to the monitors, since system maintenance was one of her assigned tasks. Jaci made no comment to Ruth until her work brought her to the monitor. She surreptitiously shut it down for the moment it would take to talk to Ruth. She was taking a chance, but she needed to talk to someone who might understand and Ruth was as close as she could come to a friend among the Breeds. She believed in her newly awakened heart that Ruth would not betray her.
“You’re right, Ruth, and I’m scared to death.”
The real agony that must have shown on her face clearly shocked the other woman.
“What’s going on, Jaci? I thought your kind didn’t have emotions. How can you feel fear?” Ruth was clearly perplexed, but willing to listen. Jaci nearly broke down in tears.
“There’s a big experiment going on. You’re not supposed to know about it, but I’ve got to talk to someone!” She hugged herself tightly around the middle, in agony as everything she’d been feeling welled up inside her. “I was assigned to prepare the doses and accidentally dosed myself with the agent. I didn’t mean to do it, and now I don’t know how to deal with these…feelings!”
Ruth stepped closer. “What was this agent supposed to do, and why can’t you tell your bosses? Wouldn’t they help you?”
Jaci shook her head vigorously. “They’ll kill me. Or lock me up. I wasn’t supposed to be involved. I’m not worthy of this honor. The subjects have been carefully chosen and most are among the elite of our society. They’d never have let me take part in the experiment.” She fought down her hysteria. “It’s a genetic manipulation agent. It’s reformulating my DNA and reigniting the sequences that theoretically might allow us to feel again, and it’s definitely working. I’m feeling all kinds of emotions I’ve never experienced before and I’m not prepared to deal with it. It’s ripping me apart.”
Ruth came over and put her arm around Jaci’s shoulder, hugging her close. It felt so good to have even this small comfort from another being.
“I think you’re just overwhelmed. It happens to most human youngsters during puberty. All these hormones release suddenly in their young bodies and their emotions go a little crazy until they get used to it.”
Jaci looked up at her hopefully. “How long does it usually last?”
“A few years.”
“Years! I can’t wait that long!”
Ruth chuckled and squeezed her shoulder before letting go.
“You need to tell David about this.”
“David?” Jaci was startled by Ruth’s suddenly businesslike tone. She knew who the other woman was talking about. David was one of the pair of cousins she liked best of the male Breeds.
In fact, the room that housed the two cousins was right next to Ruth’s and was Jaci’s next stop on her rounds in the semi-private section of the pen complex. The test subjects housed here were granted more freedom than the others, earned by good behavior or other special circumstances. Each cell had solid, opaque walls for improved privacy, but the entrance was an energized archway that was open to the hall. The temptation to talk to the man next door was enormous, but she didn’t know what good David could do for her.
“Yes, David. And Michael too. But David especially might be of some use to you.”
“Why?”
“In the old world, David was a psychiatrist. We talk sometimes, late at night when I can’t sleep, through the wall. He’s helped me a lot, and I know he likes you. Both of them do.”
“What is a psychiatrist? What does that mean?” Jaci was confused and suddenly feeling a bit jealous of the other woman’s late night conversations with the man she admired. It was unsettling to say the least.
“It means that he had to go through a lot of schooling, first to attain his medical degree, then his specialty in psychiatry. He’s a very smart man and I like to think he’s a good friend.”
“He’s a doctor?” Why did she suddenly feel sad that he’d never told her about his past?
Ruth nodded, compassion clear her eyes. “Go talk to him,” she urged. “I know you’ve done something to the cameras in here. Do the same in their cell and talk it out. They can help you and they will. They like you, Jaci. They wouldn’t give the time of day to most of your kind, but you’ve been kind when you could, even though you didn’t understand our emotions. Now I think, they’ll have pity on you and help you through your rough patch. Trust them, and know that I won’t tell a soul what you’ve told me. I don’t want you hurt. I like you and consider you a friend.”
Tears traced down Jaci’s face, much to her astonishment, and she wiped them away, looking at her wet hand with confusion. She didn’t know how to describe all the different things she was feeling. Ruth was so good, such a kind person, and so forgiving of her earlier unfeeling treatment. Jaci didn’t feel worthy of being called friend by this noble woman and it touched her deeply. She bowed her head.
“I am honored by your friendship, Ruth, and I thank you. I’ll try to do as you suggest, but I don’t know if I’m brave enough.”
But Ruth just smiled. “I think you’ll find that you’re brave enough for just about anything, Jaci. All you have to do is try.”
Jaci restored the monitors and moved on to the cell next door in her normal rounds. She was eager now to try as Ruth suggested, but fearful as well. What if the men she’d come to think of so fondly rejected her. It would crush her.
Having emotions was a tough thing to deal with. Suddenly she had new respect for these Breeds and the upheaval her kind had put them through. Most of them were truly remarkable, and now she understood a little better the ones who had been driven insane or close to it by her people.
She couldn’t wait to talk to David and Michael. She moved straight to the monitor when she entered the room. Normally she would mask her maintenance of it with her other tasks so the subjects would have no idea there was any sort of equipment in the room at all. This time, she didn’t care about protocol. She needed to talk to these men without the monitors and she would do so now, before she lost her nerve.
She disabled the system and turned to face them with her hands behind her back and her breath caught in rather desperate apprehension. Both of them were watching her carefully, inquisitive looks on their handsome faces. The moment of truth had indeed arrived.
“What’s wrong?”
David’s concern brought another of those amazing tears to her eyes. She wiped it away, noting their stunned expressions and sank onto the edge of the table behind her, resting wearily against it as she explained her tale of woe.
She told them all about how she’d exposed herself to the agent and it was tall, muscular Michael who came over to gather her into his strong arms, not David as she would have expected. David, instead, watched her in a way that was unnerving. He watched her as if she was some kind of experiment, and she suddenly understood how and why these Breeds resented their captivity and the constant monitoring.
“I’m so sorry.” She sobbed, turning her head into Michael’s strong chest.
“For what, Jaci? You’ve never done anything to harm either of us. You’ve been as close to a friend as one of your kind could be given your lack of emotion. We liked you regardless.”
She cried a bit more, waves of emotion hitting her that she didn’t know how to deal with. Michael seemed content to let
her ride the storm out in his arms and she didn’t want to move. He felt so good. So powerful and protective. She wanted to stay in his embrace, safe, for as long as she could.
Of the two, Michael was the larger and physically stronger. David was more cerebral and handsome in a way that made her stomach clench. He had a cunning smile that hinted at deviltry and close-cropped hair that she’d wanted to touch for a long time, just to see if it was as soft and fuzzy as it looked. His sharp features and intelligent, dark blue eyes were aphrodisiacs of a sort different from that of his more muscular cousin.
Because of his almost frighteningly strong masculine form, Jaci would have thought Michael would be less likely to offer her comfort. He had a rough demeanor and more athletically defined physique. He spent a lot of his spare time doing push-ups and other kinds of physical exercise that kept his body at a peak of conditioning unmatched by any of her other charges. She’d been surprised when he’d been the one to gather her close to all that amazingly warm muscle and brawn, but she loved the feel of him against her. With such a man holding her, Jaci felt like nothing could ever harm her.
Mike looked from the sobbing woman in his arms to his watching cousin. Dave was taking it all in, but he hadn’t yet made a move to help the confused young woman, and Mike was surprised. He knew Dave liked the look of Jaci. They’d had enough conversations about her since she’d become their jailer to know that for a fact. She was easy on the eyes and had a graceful manner, plus she never used her position of power to intentionally harm any of her charges. She was thoughtful and kindor as kind as a person without any understanding of emotion could hope to be.
“Why won’t you help her?” Both men were reasonably strong telepaths and had other gifts as well.
“She needs to cry,” Dave said firmly in his cousin’s mind. “When she’s got this out of her system, we can begin to work on integrating the emotions.”
“This could be the break we’ve been looking for.” Mike was excited by the possibilities. “If the aliens are experimenting with reintroducing emotions into their people, it could help us all. I bet the O’Haras had something to do with this development.”
The rumor mill among the Breeds was fast and furious. With so many telepaths among their number, even the separation into cells couldn’t keep many of them from communicating with each other. Word had spread quickly about the O’Hara brothers when an old O’Mara woman and her husband and daughter had been captured. She’d stood right up to the aliens and told them what the eldest O’Hara had told her to say and surprisingly, it had worked. She’d mentioned her maiden name and suddenly the family had been whisked out of the general population. They had friends down in the pens and they’d kept up the communication, telling them what had occurred.
Mike knew there were free humans working to better conditions for them all and the O’Haras were at the forefront of the fight. He’d even heard tell of the half-alien boy one of the brothers had fathered and his work to help his human kin. Harry, they called him, but the aliens called him Hara in almost reverent tones. Mike had watched and listened carefully, compiling information and looking for his own way out of the cells.
Whether that meant a breakout or cutting some kind of deal, he’d had enough of captivity. It was slowly driving him mad. Only his cousin’s calming influence had helped him through the worst of it. Of the two, Dave was the thinker and Mike was the doer. It had been that way since they’d been kids. They’d worked together to build their business. Dave had written the books and Mike had marketed them. Together they’d made millions, but it was all gone now, and Dave was putting his education and talents to use, simply helping those few people he came into contact with stay saneor as sane as they could given the circumstances.
“From what we’ve heard, the O’Haras have influenced the aliens more than anyone could have guessed. Maybe you’re right,” Dave mused silently to his cousin as he moved nearer the sobbing girl. “Maybe after studying humans for more than a decade, the aliens are finally coming to realize their own lack of emotion and what it’s cost their people as a whole. We’ve heard the rumors about the throwback crystallographer, right? He’s teaching humans now, so maybe they’ve found some link between emotion and their prized crystal gift.”
“We’ve speculated about that before, Dave. We have no evidence to support that theory, but now that we know they’re experimenting on themselves to this radical an extent, it makes sense to think something’s spurring them on.”
Mike stroked her hair as his mind raced. Dave drew nearer and reached out his hand. Mike knew his cousin had a healing touch and he could feel Jaci’s tears winding down.
“Give her to me.”
Mike relinquished her without a word, knowing Dave would work his magic on her. He was glad of his cousin’s gift. He liked Jaci and didn’t like to see her suffer, even if she was an alien. After this he figured, if she survived her unintentional experimentation, she’d be less like the aliens and more like them. Maybe they could truly be friends now. Or more.
After all, she was a beautiful woman. Tall, lithe and pale, she was prettier than most human women he’d been with, and he’d been with a lot of human women before the cataclysm. Opportunities were rarer now that most human women were gone, but since their capture two years before, the aliens had given him and Dave chances to fuck other captives, which they only did if the woman they were thrown in with wanted it. Of course, with Dave’s extraordinary ability to heal the mind as well as the body, most women wanted to fuck them in thanks after he’d laid his healing hands on them.
But Mike didn’t love any of those women. Hell, he barely even knew them. He’d always needed at least to be friends with the woman beneath him in bed. He believed it made the sex better, and he knew Dave needed emotional attachment as well, due to his rather unique gifts. It had been hard for the cousins and though they’d never even considered enjoying a ménage before the cataclysm, the rarity of women had brought them to realize they enjoyed sharing the few women they’d found who wanted the pleasure they could bring.
Mike watched Jaci shift into Dave’s arms with speculation. They’d never fucked an alien woman but they’d heard about it from another captive who’d been asked to do it. Their body temperature was hotter and their pussies tight, or so the man had claimed. Mike licked his lips, thinking he’d really like to find out the truth of it for himself, and he knew just the woman he’d like to discover it with.
Chapter Two
Dave took her into his arms. She didn’t weigh much for such a tall woman. He was more than a few inches over six feet and she only came up to his chin. He was amazed by the turn of events that brought her into his arms in need of his healing touch, but he’d learned that things generally happened for a reason. As his cousin had said, this could be a chance for them to regain their freedom. He didn’t quite know how yet, but such an odd occurrence had to be significant in some way.
“David,” she sobbed, her tears starting to ease as he stroked her hair.
“I’m here, Jaci. Just relax. Listen to my voice and relax, okay? I’ll try to help you.”
“How?” She hiccupped and he had to smile. She was cute when she was upset.
“I’m a healer.” He’d never admitted his real talent to any of his captors before, preferring to let them think he was just a mild telepath. He didn’t want to cooperate with them any further than he had to.
“Ruth told me you were a doctor before.”
So she’d been talking to Ruth. He took in the information, realizing he should not have been too surprised. Ruth often spoke to the cousins about the things Jaci had told her about the outside each day. Little things, like whether it was raining or sunny, what the temperature was doing or what small furry creature she’d just discovered in the park area the aliens had set aside for walking. Jaci had tried to be kind in her way, and had succeeded even before her emotions had been released. He thought that was significant.
“I was a medical doctor and a psyc
hiatrist, but what I really meant is that I can heal with my touch.” He let a small pulse of his energy tingle along her skin and she jumped, making him smile.
“But I am not physically injured.” Her voice was muffled against his chest and he found he liked the feel of her slight weight resting against him. He stooped his head to speak into her ear, his breath teasing her sensitive skin, raising goose bumps, he was pleased to note.
“I can heal physical injuries, it’s true, but I also have a special gift, Jaci. I can heal the mind.”
She drew back from him, wonder in her wide eyes.
“Truly?”
He nodded slowly, holding her gaze.
“But you never told Mara—”
“I’m a prisoner here against my will. I have no desire to cooperate with Mara or any of your people. I told them only what I wanted them to know.”
She thought hard for a moment, he could tell, then her eyes brightened. A few new tears leaked out.
“That’s how you’ve been helping Ruth and the others. I thought I noticed some of them were better after talking to you, but I never put it in the logs. I wasn’t sure enough to record the observation. I’m not a real scientist after all, just a tech. Jacis practically never rise higher than tech level.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. There are countless tales in human history about people overcoming humble beginnings to become great leaders and innovators. You’re more than your genetic code, contrary to your people’s beliefs. We all have greatness within us. We need only tap into it.”
She tilted her head, considering his words. “I’m feeling something odd. I’ve never felt it before, but it feels light and bubbly and…yearning. I think it’s hope.” Her eyes dilated with pleasure as he watched.