by Loki Renard
A human.
She looks less human than the butchered aliens on display, but scent does not lie. Underneath those chains and all that filth, behind the veil of grime and matted hair, there is a human female. I feel my senses thrilling to her, locking on to her. My mind is filled with disbelief, but I know what I am seeing, I can make out the shapes of her limbs, the curve of her hip, the length of her leg curled up against her body. She is chained more aggressively than any other exhibit here. There are bands of metal on her wrists and ankles, and at her neck and waist. Heavy chain binds her to the floor and wall. I have never seen a human kept this way, not even during the fairly dark periods of human history. She is not moving. She’s just a little lump of human, curled up against the world. The only indication that she is alive comes from the fact that I do not smell any decay.
“Can I help you, sir?”
I look down to see an elbublian standing next to me. Figures. Elbublians are traders, scammers, liars, and exceptional cooks. You always eat at an elbublian restaurant, and you never leave your valuables unattended. Elbublians are recognizable by their stature - which is very short. They rarely grow any taller than three feet, and for their stomach pouches, which bulge with traded riches.
“What’s that?” I point at the human girl. “Is it for sale?”
“That’s something a little special,” he says, his teeth flashing in a broad, friendly smile which inevitably hides a world of lies. Reaper once told me that a study had shown elbublians are actually allergic to truth. They’re born talking, and everything they say from birth onwards is a lie. But what he just said appears to be true. “And yes, it is, for the right price.”
“What kind of animal? Is it for eating?”
The disguise I am wearing makes me look like a nice, but stupid kind of species. The kind elbublians love to take advantage of. I can see his diamond shaped eyes gleam with greed, and it is all he can do not to rub his four hands together in glee.
“It’s a human,” he says. “And they're not good eating, but they make good slaves.”
“Why is that one chained up?”
“She’s untrained,” he says.
Obviously I was not meant to see this, but just as obviously, this elbublian thinks I am too stupid to understand what I am seeing. If he had any idea how precious a human woman is, there is no way she would be kept this way. That makes me curious. Has the news of the destruction of the human homeworld not penetrated this deep into space? Or does he know something I don’t?
“She must be fake.”
He looks offended. “That’s a real genuine human woman!”
If it wasn’t for the smell, that uniquely human tang, I wouldn’t believe him.
“Then why do you have her out the back? Humans are big money.”
“She doesn’t know how to behave,” he says. “She bites and kicks, but a big guy like you, you wouldn’t have any trouble holding her down, and…”
“Wait,” I say, interrupting him before he triggers the rage in me so completely I can no longer contain it. “Where did you get her?”
Reaper would be so proud of me for asking questions first instead of just twisting this disgusting little creature’s head off and hurling it across the marketplace. I am doing what is known as gathering intelligence, even though every second we stand here and discuss the girl is another second she suffers in filth and chains. I make notes in mental parenthesis as the elbublian talks.
“We purchased her (lie) from the Interstellar Gardens (never heard of it). They had just taken on an exhibit of humans and other Earth species. Tried to house the tigers with the humans, but it didn’t go well. Anyway. This one was supposed to be our display piece, but she keeps trying to attack the customers, so we’re keeping her back here until she learns to behave.”
“She’s filthy.”
“Let me clean her up for you,” he says, clearly eager to make the sale.
He picks up a bucket of nearby water and throws it over her. It hits her tender body, rushing over shivering exposed skin which bears marks of older cruelty. She barely flinches, and I know that is because she has been hurt so very many times before she doesn’t respond to pain anymore. To break an animal this badly, you have to hurt it relentlessly day and night for reasons it cannot understand until it no longer fights, no longer complains, no longer even reacts.
I look at him, and I smile. This conversation is over.
42
SPLASH!
I keep my eyes closed against the cold cascade of water, knowing that the initial shock is not the worst of what is to come. The seeping cold will soon make my skin prickle with heat that isn’t there, my muscles cramp and my bones ache.
There are sounds and noises. Shapes moving close to me. I close my eyes against them and I pray for death to come for me before they do. I know the end is near. I’ve been waiting for it for a very long time. I didn’t know it would come this way. I thought I’d just fade away back here, take one last breath and slide into oblivion.
But it’s noisy now, and not in the way it usually is. The air doesn’t ring with jeering, squeaking, and shouting. There are loud voices, but they’re sort of… shrieking. And gurgling.
If I still had a fear response, I might be afraid. Instead, I’m just… aware. I have been numb for so long I don’t recall how to worry. I don’t know how to care. I don’t know how to do anything at all besides breathe. Exist. I don’t know if I ever knew any other way of being.
My memory is very short. It began when the chains went on in darkness, and since then it has been so similar that I cannot tell one day from the next. There are two ingredients to every moment of my existence: hunger and pain, and neither one of them help me tell the time.
A particularly sharp shriek rings out next to me and my eyes open with what is left of my curiosity.
There is a big pink and blue fluffy animal very close to me. I think they call them Pandacares. They’re exhibit #134. But this one is far more active than any specimen I have ever seen before, much larger - and it just ripped its own head off.
Interesting.
I watch the body of the pandacare fall down, a senseless sack of skin. Out of the fluffy animal suit emerges a massive scythkin marauder. I know it’s a scythkin marauder because one of those beasts was briefly known as exhibit #97 before it broke out, killed almost every other exhibit, and the exhibitors as well. I enjoyed that day. I thought, for a moment, it might kill me too, but it didn’t.
This one is killing already. It takes my captor, impales him on its ridges and then twists him into two pieces, wringing his guts out as if he is dirty laundry. Scythkin are the most frightening species in the universe. They are designed to dominate, kill, and possess. Not necessarily in that order. I know that, because that’s what it said on the Scythkin’s cage before it came out of sedation and did the second of those things to everything it encountered between it and the exit.
I was so jealous of it then. It was so strong. Nothing stopped it. But this one might be even more fearsome, because this one is not frightened, and it is not trying to escape. This one is killing the aliens who have been holding me. Where one falls, another comes. Stupid. They should be running away from the killing, but I suppose they don’t know what has been unleashed in the back of their hellish circus tent.
Scythkin are naturally heavily armored. This one has fangs and horns and sharp protrusions all over its body, each of them utterly lethal.
One, two, three, four, all the proprietors come to try to save their friends, and one, two, three, four, they are all turned into pieces of their former selves, broken down into their component parts, becoming nothing more than sludge on the floor.
Then it turns to me. Looks at me with eyes that burn like fire. It is my turn.
The beast moves toward me with purpose, eyes glowing, sharp ridges fully expanded, navel channels awash with blood. Scythkin have special channels between their muscles where the blood and viscera wash down. Quite fascinat
ing. I’ve never seen one up this close. It is likely to be the last thing I ever see. I am okay with that. I am chained and restrained, so there is no way to escape, and I long ago learned that there’s no point trying. Besides, I don't have much of a life to save. I think maybe I had a life before this, but I cannot remember it. Every moment before becoming exhibit 42 has been systematically erased from my mind. And maybe, now, I am to be finally erased as well. I owe this beast a debt of thanks.
The closer it gets, the more detail I can see. It has claws, each one as long as my face. They extend toward me and I watch them come with detached interest. It might hurt when they scythe through my skin, but I have experienced more pain than I can contain already and the prospect of more doesn’t concern me. Every time I am hurt, I feel my reluctant life flash and flutter inside me, proving that against all odds I am still here. Still drawing miserable breath.
I brace myself for the cleaving of flesh, but instead all I hear is the tinkle of breaking chain. The beast is not attacking me, but my bonds. He snaps every single one of the chains holding me in place, the ones at my ankles, the ones at my wrists, the one that keeps my waist in place, and the one at my neck. The manacles are still in place, but I am no longer chained to the filthy floor where I have been held for longer than I can begin to count.
But I am not free.
The beast takes firm hold of me, lifting me against its body. I become smeared in the exsanguination of unfortunate species it has already slain, but I do not fight. There is no sense in struggle. Not against my previous captors, and not against this one. I am limp in his arms, submissive to yet another capture as I am carried away at high speed. The scythkin is racing through the crowd with some particular destination in mind. I close my eyes, not caring where I am going, or what happens to me when I get there. It is just another event unfolding, another experience inflicted on me by an unfeeling and disinterested universe.
Tarkan
I can’t believe I have a human in my grasp. I wasn’t entirely certain she was a human until I touched her. There is a way humans feel that no species can replicate. There's a softness of the skin, a certain suppleness that is not typical of any other animal. Humans are delicate. Their bones are soft and kept entirely on the inside of their bodies. It’s such a useless design, but it makes the females so beautifully vulnerable, their soft curves so completely exposed.
This one is not in good condition. The human we found all those months ago was not either. But where One had been battling a harsh environment, this girl has been systematically and deliberately abused. I can see marks on her skin, old bruises and cuts, not to mention other abrasions from ongoing harsh treatment and rough captivity.
I wish I could kill her captors all over again, but unfortunately life can only be taken once, and…
STOP! SECURITY!
Red signs begin to flash all around me. Apparently, someone has taken exception to the rampant murder which just took place. I hope Reaper has the ship warmed up and ready to go, or this is going to turn into a serious bloodbath.
My instinct is never to run from a battle, but I have this woman in my arms, this shivering, broken, terrified little creature who is relying on me to protect her. I cannot stand and fight. I have to run, because I can see no fewer than three security teams deploying to our current location, and none of them look like they’re going to understand the fact that I just killed a permit holding stall owner because he was keeping his stock captive. In the eyes of the law, I am nothing more than a murderer and a thief.
The security teams are made up of heavily armored little aliens with six arms and four legs each, but even with all those extra limbs at play I move at a much faster pace than they do.
“STOP! HEY! STOP! Please?!”
Their cries become more desperate and less authoritative the further we go. If I’m not mistaken, they’re also out of breath. My pride will not allow me to run from what would on Earth be equivalent to mall security.
“I’ve got asthma!” I hear one of them gasp.
A few feet away from the ship, I stop. I turn around and see that they have nothing but electric jab sticks that won’t do a thing to me, and self-righteous attitudes. I’m sure this crime will be reported to real security forces soon enough, but right now, this is the volunteer brigade, and my ego stings at the fact I ever ran from them in the first place.
I’m interested to see what happens next. Will they try to take me down? Will they issue me with a ticket? Will they leave with their entrails decorating their bodies in new and interesting ways?
All the teams stop with an almost audible screeching sound and stare at me, their stalked eyes blinking at me with a profound confusion. I wait a moment for them to try some kind of arrest, but predictably, nothing happens.
“I thought so,” I say, turning and walking onto the ship. There’s not a single one of them who are going to risk their lives for one ratty looking zoo specimen, or to avenge the lives of a handful of criminal elbublians.
“Seriously?” Reaper greets me at the door. “You stopped to showboat and intimidate?”
“Yes,” I say, pushing past him. “Get this ship off the ground if you don’t want to be surrounded by real enforcement forces.”
“You had to make that much of a mess!?”
“I only killed the ones that deserve to be killed,” I say. “Now let me get this girl safe.”
She’s curled up in my arms, so small and so still it would be easy to forget that she was there if she wasn't the most precious thing in all existence.
“Put her in the containment area,” he says. “We can set up a new human triage area, just like we did before.”
“I don't think so. No containment fields for this girl. She’s been through enough captivity to last forever.”
I can see One peeking out from behind Reaper. She’s curious, but not as curious as I am, or nearly as worried. I have the girl, but I don’t know how long she will survive if she isn’t tended to immediately. I don’t feel much, if any motion in my arms. I’m not even sure she’s breathing.
“You want help?”
“I don’t think she needs two of us fussing over her,” I say. It’s better than saying what I want to say: No. She’s mine. Don’t fucking touch her.
I was so angry when Reaper took One for his mate. When he met One for the first time, he took her for his own almost immediately, mating with her before I could. I thought he was being selfish. I thought of her as something that should have been shared property.
For the first time, I understand completely why he refused. And I’m surprised he didn’t kill me for suggesting he let me have her, because now I have this quivering female in my arms, I know I will never want anyone else - and I will never let anyone else touch her. I don’t know a thing about this girl, but I know she’s mine. I know it with more certainty than I’ve known anything in my entire life.
I never thought I’d have the chance to find love. It’s too early to tell if she might love me, but I already know I love her. The feeling is suffusing every tissue in my body. I feel an intense urge to protect her at all costs, an overwhelming need which will not allow me to relax until I have her somewhere secure.
“You know where the medical bay is?”
“Yes. It is one of the four cabins on this entire vessel,” I remind him. “Just take off, please. Use the hyperdrive. Jump as far and as fast as we can. I left a mess down there.”
“Of course you did,” Reaper says. There’s no judgement in his tone, just resignation.
Chapter Two - Breathe For Me
Tarkan
I carry the unnamed young woman into the medical bay. As I do, I feel the ship start to power up. It vibrates on two separate frequencies, one being the general hum of the ship’s main systems, the other the activation of the jump drive. That’s our secret weapon, apart from the fact it’s not a secret, and basically not a weapon. It’s actually an advanced evasive system, though scythkin can never admit retreat, let
alone defeat, so we have to call it a weapon.
Right now, I want to be far away from this rinky-dink little space station as possible. I want to know that the girl I have is safe from those who might pursue us, at least until I can make sure she is healthy and ready to fight by my side. Something tells me this one would never allow anyone else to fight her battles for her. That’s probably why she lost hers so hard and ended up chained in the back of a tent.
I know I’m making these things up. I actually know nothing about her. A quick glimpse is all I’ve had, and it is enough to make my imagination start deciding all things about her. I feel as though I know her, though I don’t even know if she’s fully alive.
Reaper knocks on the door.
“Just wanted to check. You’re sure it’s actually a human?”
“She’s human, Reaper,” I say, turning her in my arms enough to let him see her basic form. He glances at her and I see his expression close. He sees what I see, a figure that is barely female and hardly human because of all the abuse it has taken.
“Be careful with her,” he says, as if that’s not obvious enough. Reaper thinks I am a brutal animal, and I am, most of the time. But I know when to be gentle, and this woman is bringing out the most nurturing side of me - though I have to admit, if I could rip her captor’s spines out and use them as flails to beat them with all over again, I would. There is no amount of pain I would not unleash on the bastards who hurt her this way.
“I’m going to be careful. I’m going to scan her and then…”
“You know how to use the scanner?”
He’s hovering, my concerned older broodkin who doesn’t trust me as far as he can throw me, but this girl doesn’t have anybody else beside me. I’m the one who set her free. I’m the one who will make sure she never has to endure the humiliation of capture again.
“Just shove it up her butt, right?” I snort at him. “Reaper, I want to get her comfortable.”
“Nothing’s going up my butt…” I hear a soft utterance from my arms. She speaks! She understands me!