Possessive Aliens: Dark Scifi Romance Box Set

by Loki Renard

  With that, he closes me into darkness. Well. I am going to have a lot to say once he lets me out, that's for certain. I begin compiling my lecture in my head. The word unacceptable comes up a lot, as do the terms disrespectful, and never again.

  Tyank

  Back alone on the bridge, I initiate a video link. In short order, the Galactor captain appears on my screen. He is of the Holdan, a species of alien known for brutality, much like the scythkin, except unlike the scythkin, they are not scythkin, which is to say, they are my enemy. They like to sail the universe in flashy ships which tend to be noisier than most, and brighter colored. Like all of Galactor, they are heavily branded.

  "All alone, scythkin?”

  “Scythkin are never alone,” I bluff. I’m hoping that they keep their distance. They are a single ship, alone. So am I. Best case scenario, we pass each other by, ships who’ve said hello, threatened each other, then passed in the night.

  “That’s what they say, but our instruments aren't picking anything up.”

  “That's because your instruments are cheap Galactor crap.”

  It is important I remain hostile, and aggressive. Any sign of weakness, any hint of fear and they will be on me. Galactor made products are rubbish, but their weapons tend to work. I need to get out of their radius of efficiency now. But I also want to know what they are doing out here. If they're sniffing around the timesploded colonies, we may need more help safeguarding humanity.

  The Galactor captain laughs without humor. “We’re offering twenty percent off all weaponry right now,” he says. “You might want to invest in some. Our scans indicate you’re traveling very light.”

  “Come aboard and see how light I'm traveling,” I threaten. The Holdan are no match for me. In person, I could kill dozens of them before they touched me and they know it. Unless they're willing to blow me out of the sky, this is going to be nothing more than posturing.

  “We have men trapped in the timesplosion. We're working to free them,” the Holdan captain confesses, apropos of nothing. Apparently they can't stand awkward silences.

  “Well, that’s fun for you,” I say. “Better get on with that.”

  "Next time, scythkin.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief as their ship departs at high speed. We were not equipped to deal with them. That was foolish oversight on my part. Next time, I will be ready.

  “Alright, Karen. You can come out no…”

  The second I open the cargo bay doors, I realize I have made a huge mistake.

  It is empty.

  They robbed me. They never intended on fighting me at all. It was a ruse. They must have activated their transporters while I was talking to them. They took everything I have by stealth, including the woman who matters more than anything in the universe.

  They may not know what they have in that crate. I sincerely hope they do not. I hope she stays quiet until I can get to her. If they touch her. If they look at her. If they so much as fucking breathe on her - I am going to kill each and every one of them.

  The Final Manager

  Karen

  There’s a weird lightness, as if I and the crate momentarily loose all mass, then the heaviness of existence sets in. I must be running out of oxygen. I need to get out of this confined space. I need to free myself. I start to push at the top, only to find that large hands are already lifting it off. Relief mixes with anger to express itself in a sharp exclamation.

  “This is UNACCEPTABLE!”

  I burst from the crate, expecting to see Tyank's face, but what I am looking at is not Tyank.

  It is tall, and lean and it has big dark eyes, a small mouth, and what looks like a fin on its back. It could be a fish, except for the fact that it has two legs and is covered in musculature which speaks to warriordom. It wears an insignia upon its chest, a large G which manages to be somehow cheerfully obnoxious without being in any way interesting. For a moment, I am afraid that I am in the grip of a complete stranger. Then I remember about the suits and whatnot and I reach out and slap Tyank on his arm.

  "What the hell are you wearing? Does your face come off in that one? Does the dick work?”

  Tyank looks at me blankly, then turns around to another Tyank in a suit. Except it’s not Tyank in a suit because how could there be two Tyanks? The fear returns, twice as strong for having been scared away once before.

  “There’s a human here, sir.”

  “A human?” The other not-Tyank turns around and looks at me with a curious fish-eyed gaze.

  “Human female. Forties, I’d say. She could be out of the simulation.”

  “Are you out of the simulation, human?” The second not-Tyank questions me.

  "I don't know what you're talking about. How dare you disturb me!” I put all my energy into righteous condemnation.

  The not-Tyanks look at one another.

  “I would like to speak to both your managers,” I hiss.

  The universal incantation has never failed me before, and does not fail me now. The not-Tyanks look at one another, reminding me strongly of fish out of water. Their googly-eyed gazes have gone from predatory to concerned.

  “This instant!” I add, before they can collect their wits about them and wonder aloud why cargo is telling them what to do. The secret to dominating strangers is to start out strident and not let them have a moment to think.

  “The utter gall!” I harrumph. It has been a long time since I have had a good harrumph, and doing it feels like reclaiming my power.

  “If she’s a human…”

  “I'm sorry, did I ask you to stand about gawping at one another? Manager! Now! I will be asking for a complete refund. And I don’t have to tell you that the insurance processors won't like that one bit. You’ll likely be in for an audit.”

  The word ‘audit’ sends a visible shiver through both not-Tyanks. They turn, their massive forms setting off into a gait which can only be described as a scurry.

  It is quite obvious that I am no longer on the same ship. I don’t know what they did to Tyank, if they did anything at all. I have the feeling that they somehow took everything out of the cargo bay in an instant. I do not like alien technology. It is unsettling at the best of times. At least in the simulation I had to undergo the formality of being thrown down the plughole in the ocean into the laundry basket at the end of the world.

  I follow the not-Tyanks down a green corridor which is liberally festooned with the same G symbol they wear on their not inconsiderable chests. This doesn't feel like a ship. It feels like a small traveling shop. There are signs here and there declaring that employees must wash their hands, and others declaring that everything is either 15 or 30 percent off - except for the things which are 50% off. Finally, we reach a door which is unremarkable except for what is behind it.

  The manager is not a fish person. He is something round sitting on a stool far too small for him. He is the color of play-dough when all the colors get mixed together, and he has the general expression of a half-melted candle. He doesn’t appear to have arms or legs. He does, however have hands which flap on either side of his generalized girth. He looks at me with weary eyes, and a sort of disinterest I have seen on many a manager's face before. This is no mere manager. This is more like a regional manager. I will have to be careful.

  “Sir? This… person would like to speak to you,” the not-Tyank says, introducing me.

  “How can I help you, madame?”

  “I,” I say in a practiced tone well versed in complaining, “have just been stolen.”

  “Stolen, eh? Well, that would be a 1-J4 form you’d need to fill in to report yourself stolen.”

  Oh. I see what’s happening here. They’re going to try to use bureaucracy against me. I don't think so. I invented useless forms. I know how to administer my way in and out of all kinds of trouble. If this piece of glob thinks he has the better of me, he has another thing coming.

  "This is piracy!” I declare. “Would you download a car?”

  The ma
nager gives me the benefit of a simpering smile. “Of course we wouldn't download a car. The combustion engine is the product of toxic historic societies.”

  “That’s insulting! I am insulted. I'd like to lay a formal complaint. Bring me your forms and I will file them forthwith.”

  “I’m sorry, all forms must be obtained from the office in Zetareticuli. They must then be filed two clicks left of the Horsehead Nebula, past the old parts store.”

  Oh he’s good. Really good. I’m dealing with a professional here. This deviant pile of semi-sentient dough has obviously been giving annoyed customers the runaround since before I was born.

  “That's fine,” I say, knowing I still have cards up my sleeve. “I’ll just go… to… the media!” I whip the final words out with a verbal flourish. On either side of the doughman, the not-Tyanks blanch, but not him. He keeps his cool and he does the one thing I cannot stand, and for which I have no defense.

  He ignores me, and starts talking about me as if I am not there at all.

  “She’s still fully functional,” he says to the not-Tyanks. “Pretty impressive given they were never designed to work outside the system. Most of them had complete meltdowns if we took them out. Had to wipe them completely. This one doesn't seem to have had her head cleaned.”

  “You will speak to me when I am present,” I say stridently, but the spell is broken. Nobody is listening to me anymore. There is no fear in any of their eyes. Whatever power I had has been utterly decimated by the manager. Is this how it all ends for me? In a stuffy office, bested by an officious drone?

  Some part of me always knew this is how it was always supposed to end. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Every Karen knows that there will one day be a manager she cannot destroy.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what you mean,” one of the not-Tyanks says.

  “This is the Kar3n model, remember? From the simulation. We programmed a few of the humans this way so they'd take the murketeer orders and convey them to the rest of the population. Officious, self-important, humorless, joyless, we engineered them to be repellent to most humans, so they would forever be on the exterior, willing to enforce whatever regulations we decided.”

  He's reading me for filth, calling out every weakness I’ve ever had, which makes sense, because apparently, they were programmed into me. I didn’t choose to be this way. I was made this way by beings who wanted to use me for the very traits everybody hates me for.

  I am speechless, and that means I am powerless.

  “Put her in a cage. We’ll use her in a sideshow. The annual conference is coming up, we can have her at the front badgering attendees into wearing their lanyards and asking people if they've sanitized their hand and then making them sanitize them again. Especially the species that don't have hands.”

  I am lost. I can’t defend myself. I can’t do anything physically against these big not-Tyanks, and the revelation from the manager that I am myself because I was a slave inside a simulation of their making leaves me with an existential crisis so crippling I barely flinch as the fish men take hold of me.

  Eeehhhh…

  There's a sound. Like the crumpling of a plastic bread wrapper, or the crackling of a flame.

  nnnnnmmm….

  And there's a tone. A tone. A mnnnnnnnnnnghhhhhhhh…….

  And there is this… BOOM!

  That is the sound of something happening very fast and very hard. That is the sound of metal tearing open as the door behind us explodes and a monster I have never seen before enters the room with an aggressive snarling growl.

  “SCYTHKIN!”

  The scream goes up behind me.

  Scythkin!

  Tyank is a scythkin, but he doesn't look like this. Whatever just came through the door is burning with rage and rife with danger. He bristles with sharp fury, every part of him extended so that he seems twice the size of Tyank.

  I am left standing by myself as the fish men who are definitely not Tyank attack the creature that I am increasingly thinking might be Tyank. Just... not as I have ever seen him.

  I knew Tyank was dangerous. I did not appreciate the sheer power he has at his disposal, how the sharp blades reticulating all over his body, usually pulled tightly in when he deals with me, can spring out in a thousand vicious slashing surfaces which leave the crew of this ship so much chum out of water.

  From the moment he bursts through the door, to the moment all three of my tormentors are sliced, diced and ready for juicing, it is only a matter of seconds. I am too shocked to react. I stand there, staring before, during and after the mini-massacre.

  Tyank turns around, breathing heavily, his blades still fully extended as he takes stock of the room and makes sure that there is nobody else here. There's not. There’s just him and me and the dismembered corpses of our enemies.

  The flame in his eyes diminishes and he looks at me with a softer gaze. “I was so worried," he confesses, reaching for me with clawed hands. I ignore the blood on them, and the blood all over him as he pulls me in for the best hug I’ve ever experienced. I bury myself against his naked chest as he holds me tight.

  “I thought I lost you," he growls. “I was going to kill them if they touched you. I was going to kill them if they didn’t. Did they hurt you? Did they touch you? Did they breathe on you? What did they do?”

  “Nothing. They just talked to me. They were rude, but…” I look down at my feet at the mush which used to be my interlocutor. “They told me I was programmed.”

  “All humans in the simulation are programmed, to one extent or another.”

  “Like a calculator, or a computer?”

  “No. It’s different. It’s…”

  “Am I me? Is there any me? Have I ever chosen anything in my life? Do I even have a personality?”

  I know this probably isn't the time for this. We are standing in the entrails of our enemies, but I have to know. How can I react to what is happening when I don’t even know what I is? How can I are if I do not know how to am?

  Tyank

  She’s panicking the way she probably should have panicked when she first discovered the truth about the simulation. But everything which has transpired in the last few hours has no doubt put her into shock, and maybe jolted a few stubborn neurons loose.

  “Of course you have a personality. The coding only goes so far.”

  “But that man thing was a total stranger and he described me like he knew me!”

  “Well,” I say, holding her close. “You could always change your personality if you like. You can be whoever you want.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something that is true.”

  “I love you, Karen. For exactly what and who you are. None of us choose what makes us. We can change if we want, but we’re all defined by the universe before we have a choice. I am scythkin. You are human. Neither of us chose those things, but here we are, wanting to be loved for whatever we are, and whatever we might one day be. I love you, Karen. For whoever you are, and everything you will be. Coded, un-coded, unplugged, unhinged, it doesn't matter.”

  Karen

  He has stopped my panic. Somehow, he knew exactly what to say. I may have been formed by the simulation, but I’m outside it now. I choose who I become.

  “How did you get so wise?”

  “You take enough people apart, you get to know how they work," he says, going back to being his usual scythkin self. “I’m sorry you had to see all that. It must have been very frightening for you. Humans generally like to keep seeing the outsides of things. They get weird when you show them the inside."

  “It is messy,” I agree.

  “I’m sorry," he repeats, his horns sinking back in misery. “I didn't want you to see that.”

  Oh no. He’s gotten the idea that I didn’t like seeing him destroy my enemies. Surely that is the dream of every Karen, to see those who oppose her drowning in rivers of blood. Okay, maybe not every Karen. Maybe I'm already changing into someone more bloodthirsty than be
fore. Maybe I’m already becoming the me I'm going to be.

  “That was awesome,” I tell him.

  He breaks into a relieved grin. “It was pretty awesome," he agrees. “It has been far too long since I got to do some good hard massacring.”

  “Well they deserved it. They’re collecting humans, they said. Putting them in sideshows.”

  "Sounds about right. If Galactor can exploit something for profit, they will.”

  “We have to rescue the humans!” I say, suddenly filled with uncharacteristic good will toward my species. I have felt twice now how vulnerable to vicious aliens we are, how little we truly understand the universe in which we dwell. It has to be up to the few who know to take care of all those who do not.

  "All of them? There’s a lot of humans. We’re talking about all the humans who ever existed throughout history, now scattered across time and space. Saving all of them is not going to be easy.”

  “Nobody said things worth doing were easy, Tyank.”

  “For now, how about we get back to the simulation. There’s forty thousand or so humans there without much in the way of protection. Unless you think the murketeers can handle the forces we just tangled with.”

  “I do not think they can,” I agree.

  "Then let’s go, Ms Manager.”

  “I love it when you call me that.”

  He flashes his sexy, broad grin at me. “I know.”

  I fall into his arms, kiss him thoroughly. He wraps his limbs around me, embracing me with all the immense passion we share. I am his human. He is my alien. And the future is ours to simulate.

  The END

  But also… not the END!

  Run!

  “You will behave,” the alien snarls, his eyes lit with intense dominance, his very being a terrifying testament to the awesome power of creation when it is channeled by feral evolution toward the sole purpose of brutality and conquest.

  He is the product of the universe’s desire to create a perfect predator, and it shows in every part of his form, from the sharp blades which extend from nearly every part of his muscular body, to the hard plates of everything-resistant skin which cover him from head to toe, to the aura of pure menace which exudes from every armored pore. His eyes sear into me with incredible ferocity, and I feel my resolve beginning to bend beneath the force of his will.