by Tammy Walsh
“If what you’re saying is true,” the raven-haired beauty said, wavering on her seat. “Then there would be lots of girls who’ve gone missing.”
“They have,” I said, pointing. “Over there, in that alley, are missing girl posters. A wall of them. There’s hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.”
“Then why isn’t this on the news? Why hasn’t this place been investigated?”
I shrugged. “Maybe it has. Or maybe they bought everyone off.”
The friends shared uncertain looks.
“What do you want us to do?” the mousey one said.
“Spread out,” I said. “Tell everyone here they’re in danger. They’ll get kidnapped if they try to leave.”
“I’ve got an even better idea,” the raven-haired girl said. “How about we get another drink?”
As she waved a waitress over, the other girls, struggling to control themselves, finally burst out laughing.
“That is the best story I’ve heard in a long time,” the mousey one said, slapping the table. “You should be a comic.”
“I’m telling the truth…” I said, albeit a different version of it.
Sharon flicked her notebook open to jot down the order. Once the raven-haired beauty was done, she grabbed the waitress’s arm.
“Hold on a sec,” she said. “Maybe you can help us. This girl just sat with us and she says all the cops and the workers here are part of some kind of kidnapping ring. Is that true?”
Sharon looked from the raven-haired beauty to me. The fake smile fixed on her face flickered for just an instant. The others might not have noticed it, but I did.
My cover was blown. Thanks a lot, asshole.
“No,” Sharon said. “Of course not. Why would you believe such a thing?”
“I was… was only kidding,” I said, and my laugh was so fake I could have learned it from the Changeling’s school of acting. “Ha-ha.”
“You didn’t look like you were joking,” the girl wearing a red wig said.
“That’s how you tell a good joke, isn’t it?” I said, scrambling for an answer. “By making it sound real.”
I got to my feet. “Anyway, I guess I’ll be seeing you guys around.”
I came face to face with a pair of cops and froze.
They reached for their handcuffs.
I turned and ran, knocking a girl carrying cocktails on her ass.
The police tore after me.
By now, partiers in the street had stopped to watch. They exchanged looks but didn’t want to get involved. It was only a matter of time before a have-a-go hero did.
I skidded and changed direction, slamming the door of an Irish pub open. The customers paused in their conversations and turned to look at me.
I shouted into the eerie silence, “Everybody! Get out of here! This place isn’t what you think it is!”
One girl stood up. “Is there a fire?”
No, but it was a good idea. I didn’t have time to explain what was the matter. Not that anyone would believe me anyway. My earlier interaction was proof enough of that.
“Yes!” I screamed. “There’s a fire! Everybody get out!”
The customers grabbed their things and hustled toward the nearest exits. They knocked the police officers back outside in a sudden wave of panic.
I ran for the back of the room and shouldered the door open. I bolted out and…
Ran into a strong pair of arms. The officer held me tight to his chest as I kicked and screamed—all in vain.
“No!” I screamed. “No!”
I’d caused a little fuss, but once everyone realized there was no fire and it was a hoax, they would go back to having a good time.
And life would return to normal.
Nighteko
The tractor beam could be used not only to freeze targets in place and pull them toward the ship, but its bright light had another useful side effect. It made subjects pliant.
The Cornicians that stood to attention before the pods were drowsy and half asleep, like moths to a flame. They drooled and, given time, would return to normal.
I began at the most distant pod and looked the creature over. He was a male and would be used as the head of the household in a lord’s mansion. He looked the type.
“Get in the pod,” I said.
He did as I asked.
The next creature was destined for a pleasure house on Ryxix 5. She was voluptuous, beautiful… with slimy green skin and a cone-shaped head. I guess some people had that fetish.
“Get in your pod,” I said.
The next female was destined to be a governess of a wealthy household. I took her from a higher education facility. She ought to be well-suited for her position.
I was about to tell her to get in her pod when I noticed something.
“Raise your left arm,” I said.
She slowly did.
Wrapped tightly around her wrist was a thin chain. Its locket consisted of a polished stone in the shape of a spiral. I inspected it and pressed a button on the side. It flicked open to show moving images of two people she must have cared about. An older male and female.
Her parents.
Alice slipped into my thoughts like an assassin. We were in my quarters, naked, our bodies entwined, sharing that sumptuous moment immediately after great sex. She fingered her chain about her wrist. The bracelet her father had given her before he died. She opened it to show me the images inside.
I reached up and felt at the rings in my ear. One gold, the other silver. I was thinking about getting a third ring, one that would remind me of Alice. I decided against it. I needed to move on. I needed to forget about her.
Fat chance of that.
And then we were at my old village. There, buried in the soil were the remnants of my old life. Something no one but two souls in the entire universe knew about.
Only us.
For the first time I could recall, I smiled at the memory of my parents.
Yes, there were painful memories, but there were also very beautiful ones. Me as a child running in the fields as they played with me, every day in the kitchens while my mother cooked, and my father coming back from the hunt.
And Alice. Every second I ever spent with her.
“Message received,” Computer said.
I snapped to attention and cleared my throat. I spoke to the remaining abductees. “Everybody get in your pods.”
They climbed inside. The lids hissed as they slid into place.
“Computer, play message,” I said.
“Captain Nighteko of Silent Shadow, identification number 96812. We have a package of human females for you to transport to their masters. Coordinates enclosed. Return to Earth immediately. Signed, Governor of Earth Colony Six. Service with a smile.”
Earth. The last place I wanted to go.
“Computer, send a reply,” I said.
What would I tell them? That I didn’t want to go? That they should call somebody else? That I didn’t need the money?
I sighed. What I didn’t need was an even worse reputation.
“I’m coming now,” I said. “Send.”
“Message sent,” Computer said.
I took a seat on a pod. “Computer, do you ever feel like the universe is conspiring against you?”
“Negative,” Computer said. “The universe consists of random acts that, on the surface, may appear to have a pattern but in actuality—”
“Never mind,” I said.
I peered down at the town and its frantic revelry in stealth mode so none of the humans below could see me. I descended to a large warehouse on the outskirts to the north. I disabled stealth mode and lowered the ramp.
A line of ten human females stood whimpering, terrified, with their hands clasped behind their backs.
“Where is your crew?” the Changeling in charge said. He wore a human male identity, middle-aged, graying at the temples. The kind face did not belong on a Changeling’s frame. On his nametag: Rogers.
&nb
sp; “I had a disagreement with them,” I said. “I’ll pick up a new crew later.”
“It’s against regulations to transport without a crew,” Rogers said.
“Then leave the merchandise here and find someone else,” I growled.
Rogers glared at me. He knew I needed contracts from this facility. All smugglers did. He motioned to his men. “Take them on board.”
I watched the women march by. Tears streamed down their cheeks. They didn’t beg for mercy. They must have done their begging earlier and found their cries ignored.
I felt both relieved and disappointed Alice wasn’t among them. Perhaps now she had a chance to live a free life. With any luck, she’d be a hundred miles from here by now. That thought made me feel a little sadder.
I turned to ascend the ramp.
“Hold up,” Rogers said. “We have one more human female.”
Another human female struggled as two Changelings wrestled with her, dragging her toward my ship.
“No!” she wailed. “Get your damn dirty paws off me!”
I recognized her immediately, of course. She wasn’t someone I could easily ignore.
She kicked and screamed and struggled. A true warrior.
But it wasn’t going to help her much against the two large males dragging her.
I wanted to reach out and snap their flimsy necks but that would invite the entire Changeling defense force down on me. There were far too many guards armed with their impulse rods for me to fight them all.
“Why hasn’t this female been neuralized?” Rogers said.
“We keep trying, sir,” one of the Changeling soldiers said. “But she keeps squeezing her eyes shut.”
Clever girl.
One guard raised the bright light to her face but her eyes were jammed shut. He loosened his grip on her arm.
Big mistake.
Alice punched him in the face and scratched at the second guard.
They both growled and their eyes flashed yellow.
“Get her on board,” Rogers barked. “She won’t struggle so much when she’s locked up in her pod.”
That only made Alice struggle harder. “No! You can’t do this to me! No!”
My heart ached to see her go through this again. No one deserved to be abducted twice in one week.
“Do you have enough pods for this shipment?” Rogers said.
“Yes.”
I itched to get on board, to get free of Earth and release Alice from her pod as soon as possible.
Rogers lifted a file and scanned some notes. “According to our files, her DNA matches that of a female you were meant to deliver yesterday. What is the reason for the failure?”
“I told you I had a disagreement with my crew,” I said with a shrug. “They wanted to open her pod and use her for themselves. I refused.”
Rogers pursed his lips. “Are you sure you can handle her this time?”
“Without my crew on board, yes.”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to allow you to fly without a crew in place.”
“Then what do you suggest?” I said.
“Take my soldiers with you,” Rogers said. “They’ll be your crew for the journey out.”
There was nothing I would hate more. “No. I will get a crew on the way.”
“You’ll be late for delivery.”
“I can assure you, I won’t be,” I said with ground teeth.
Rogers leaned in close. “You’re taking my soldiers. This is not a negotiation. Unless you want to lose transport rights with us?”
Boy, I wanted to smash his face in. A single blow would do it…
“Fine,” I said.
I would just have to figure out a sneakier way to wake her during the journey.
Rogers marched aboard my ship. I followed behind like a whipped dog. It was my ship, not theirs. The Changelings had already stored the other human females in their pods.
“Men,” Rogers said. “Gather around. I have a special mission for you.”
“What do you want us to do with her, sir?” said the Changeling handling Alice.
She wailed mournfully, her hands gripping the pod’s sides, fighting to escape. It was a losing battle. She was going to end up inside it unless I did something.
“I’ll take care of her,” I said.
The Changeling soldiers peered over at their commanding officer, who nodded. They released Alice and let me grab her. She flailed and fought worse than a cornered cat.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s me.”
She slowed her attack but still wouldn’t open her eyes.
“You can open your eyes,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Alice did—slowly. She looked up at me and wrapped her arms around me.
“I was so scared,” she said. “I thought they were going to put me back in the pod again.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Rogers was telling his underlings about their mission to act as my crew and help deliver the cargo. I moved Alice to one side so we were out of sight.
“They would have,” I said. “How did you manage to get yourself caught? I thought you were heading home?”
“I needed to make a statement at the police station, to tell them what happened to me.”
I frowned. Tell them about our adventure? I was lucky they hadn’t already shot me.
“Not the truth,” Alice said. “Something I thought they would believe.”
“They’re Changelings—”
“I didn’t know that!” she hissed. “The whole town is fake!”
“They set it up to attract human females. They arrange for them to be abducted.”
“It’s a honeytrap,” Alice said. “I heard Stryder talk about it after your Challenge.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Heat seared through my chest. “I didn’t think you would be stupid enough to go back to them!”
“I told you. I needed to make a statement. My friends’ parents would wonder what happened to their daughters. It would look a bit suspicious if just me came back and there was no explanation, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t think about it,” I admitted.
Alice turned her nose up. “Clearly.”
We looked at each other. I couldn’t keep myself from smiling.
“It’s good to see you again,” I said.
She warmed to me. “It’s good to see you too.”
We drifted closer, our lips coming within inches of each other. My heart ached to be joined with her again. To bond and become one. And this time, I swore to myself, I wouldn’t let her go.
I pulled back and shook my head. “We don’t have time.”
“It’s simple,” Alice said. “Put me in a pod and wake me up as soon as we get away from here.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Changelings are determined to give me a new crew… Them!”
Alice’s mouth flapped open and shut. “I can’t get in the pod. You might never be able to let me out again.”
“No.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
I had no idea. And time was running short. We needed to come up with something.
“Why don’t you fight the Changelings as soon as we take off?” she said.
“They’ll send a message back to their base. Then we have to deal with their fighters. Their warbirds will tear us apart. We’ll never escape.”
Alice checked over her shoulder. She eyed the pods lined up in long rows. “We couldn’t do that anyway. What about everybody else? What about all the other women in here? What about the women that will be abducted in the future?”
“They have to fend for themselves,” I said. I ran a finger over her cheek. “They’re not you.”
She slapped my hand away. “They are me! Don’t you see? They are me before you fell in love with me. Before we bonded. Every one of these women is me. And every single one
deserves to be free, to find true love the same way I did. But back on Earth.”
Her words shook me to the core. They are all me.
“If we’re not going to help them and everyone else in town, I might as well get in the pod,” Alice said.
The Changeling soldiers stamped their boots and saluted. “Sir!”
We were out of time. And we still didn’t have a plan.
“It’s up to you now,” Alice said, drifting toward the empty pod. “Find a way to save us. All of us.”
She climbed in the pod and laid down. “I love you.”
The lid slid into place. She kissed her fingertips and placed them to the lid. Then she lay back as the pod prepared her for interstellar travel.
“Captain,” Rogers said. “The men are yours. They’ll be keeping a close eye on things for us. We don’t want a repeat of what happened with your old crew, do we?”
I wasn’t listening to him. I heard only her voice echoing in my mind.
They are all me.
Inside each pod was a frozen figure. A life not lived. A bond someone wouldn’t be paired with. I had always thought of alien species as the same as any other merchandise I transported, but they weren’t. They could feel, they could breathe…
They could love.
They could be intelligent, passionate, courageous… and as sexy as hell.
This whole time, I didn’t think of them as living creatures, but things to be owned by richer beings. They were products.
Like me.
But I had been a Titan once. I grew up in a proud village on planet Tordal. They forced me into slavery. They force me to believe I was merchandise, that I was a product that could be bought and sold and never free.
Rogers was looking at me expectantly. “Well, do you?”
“Do I what?” I said.
“Do you wish to lose your contract with the Changelings?” Rogers barked.
A grin spread across my face. “Yes. I think I do.”
Rogers’ expression morphed first into incredulity and then horror as I brought my giant fist up, veins protruding with adrenaline, as I smashed him in the face, sending him sprawling to the feet of his soldiers.
They reacted fast, extending their impulse rods and jabbing me in the side. They stung—badly—but they were not the knockout blows they should have been.