Parasites Love Earth!

  "Is something wrong?"

  "I am not sure. Samantha, would you do me a favor?"

  "Yes?"

  "Please sit in the chair, just for a moment."

  Sam did, and looked up in wonderment, as Dunlop 4 lowered the helmet over her head. "What's this all about?"

  "I am not entirely sure," Dunlop repeated. He flipped a switch, and the machine suddenly hummed with power again.

  Sam, who had her clothes on, could not see what was happening, but she could feel it. It was her breasts. They were tingly.

  "Dunlop!" she said excitedly. "What's happening?"

  Dunlop checked the instruments, but did not answer.

  The tingling continued for a full three minutes, longer than any of the treatments they had given any of the others.

  And then the machine died again, the hum fading away.

  Sam excitedly unbuttoned her shirt. "My breasts! They're... fully restored! Dunlop... how?"

  "It seems I forgot the fact that while the energy store of this device was depleted, the buffer retained a certain amount of residual energy."

  "A certain amount. Just enough to totally restore one person," said Sam skeptically.

  "Yes. It was fortunate you were here when I was able to test it, or else the residual energy might have gone to waste."

  Sam leapt up and hugged him tightly. "Oh, Dunlop, I love you!" She cried. She kissed him on the cheek.

  Dunlop gave a rare laugh. "You are just naturally pleased at being restored to your former self."

  "Yeah," said Sam, her eyes narrowing. "That's all it is. I'm sure of it." But she had a big smile on her face even as she said it.

  Chapter 7: The Hive Mind

  "They are called the Hive Mind," said Dunlop 4.

  They had defeated all the other parasites who had arrived on the Container Ship, all except the ones of the Hive Mind. But Dunlop 4 had warned them that the Hive Mind was more formidable than all the other parasites combined.

  "The Hive Mind is more than just one kind of entity. It is a group of them that work in unison," said Dunlop. "To your eyes, some of them might resemble insects. Worms, caterpillars, spiders."

  "Worms and spiders?" said Jack. "Sounds like we need some bug repellant."

  "It is no laughing matter, Colonel Sullivan," said Dunlop. "The Hive Mind has taken over countless planets. It destroyed the Dunlops, all the other Dunlops, before we could stop them."

  "How did you stop them?" Jack asked.

  "We ended up sterilizing the planets in question."

  "It sounds like overkill to me," said Jack.

  "We never found an effective means to neutralize them," said Dunlop. "I will not lie to you. Before I landed, I notified the Stellar Union of the situation. If we do not manage to nullify the Hive Mind in the next few months, they will take action."

  "What action is that?" General Henderson asked.

  "Mass sterilization. They will destroy your world," said Dunlop. He saw the shocked reaction on their faces. "Trust me. If we are not able to destroy these creatures, they will take over and alter every person on this planet. Annihilation is a fate far more preferable."

  They listened to his report in stunned silence. Then General Henderson asked, "Well, what do we have so far?"

  "Our teams have found 34 people who have been infected," said Sam. "25 of them have the alien worm, or worms, we encountered on them. The other nine have those round, pancake shaped creatures on their back which Dunlop 4 refers to as riders. We have them in containment."

  "As they have been coming in, I have been removing the insect and riders from their hosts," said Dunlop 4. "They will recover. What concerns me is what we haven't found. By this time, there should be hundreds of the parasites out there, even thousands."

  "Thousands?" said Jack.

  "They spread quite rapidly, and ruthlessly, Colonel Sullivan," said Dunlop 4.

  "And your technologically advanced science has never found a way to defeat them?"

  Dunlop shook his head. "Nothing comprehensive."

  "Well, perhaps our scientists will discover something," said Henderson.

  "With respect, General, your science is even farther behind ours," said Dunlop 4.

  "You might be surprised what human ingenuity can come up with," General Henderson snapped.

  "I might at that," said Dunlop, and his gaze fell on Sam.

  ********

  "All the original Dunlops were lost," said Sam. "That's what you told me previously. You were the only on to survive, and you ordered the planet they were on to be destroyed."

  "The planet some of them were on, yes," said Dunlop. "They had already been controlled."

  "Controlled?" said Sam. "You seemed resistant to the other parasites. Can this one control you?"

  "It would seem so. Unfortunately, my clone family never survived long enough to develop a resistance to the parasites. It is puzzling, because..."

  "Yes," said Sam, taking a step closer to him.

  "Because I am usually able to sense their presence. It is not clear to me how the parasites were able to catch my clones unaware."

  "You told me that Dunlop's wife, Sirena, was taken by the parasites. Perhaps she infected him," said Sam softly, looking into his eyes.

  "Perhaps. But even then Dunlop should have sensed the presence of the parasites. How they took over the other Dunlops with such ease is a great mystery. Hopefully, one we shall discover, before it is too late," said Dunlop 4.

  "Will your Stellar Union really destroy the Earth, if the aliens win?"

  "Trust me, Samantha, you will yearn for it. Assuming there is any thinking part left of you," said Dunlop 4.

  ********

  Janice and Doctor Mackay were running experiments on the captured creatures. They looked like worms and pancakes. Sam was startled to see one of the pancakes fly across the sealed room it was in.

  "They fly?" said Sam.

  "Yep," said Janice.

  "How?"

  "I have no idea," said Janice.

  Sam looked at the creatures. "I trust this time you have proper procedures in effect to prevent escapes?"

  "No one goes in there without wearing a hazmat suit, and being thoroughly decontaminated and given a complete skin check afterwards," said Janice. "We're not going to be taken over by parasites here."

  "Not again, you mean," said Doctor Mackay.

  Janice gave him a rude look.

  "Have you found anything that kills them?"

  "Plenty," said Janice brightly. "Extreme heat. Poisons. Extreme cold. Radiation. The only problem is, all these things will kill the host as well."

  "Well, keep working on it," said Sam, uneasily watching the riders fly around the room. She'd hate to have one of those things pulsating between her shoulder blades.

  "We will," said Janice.

  ********

  Sam's relationship with Gavin had been seriously damaged. There was no other way to describe it.

  Gavin had already been resentful about the way Sam had drained his gender and treated him like a slave when she had been taken over by the Valvans. Gavin had undergone a treatment which had restored his penis, but only partially.

  It still took him considerable stimulation to get an erection. And coming, climaxing, took an even longer time. He could no longer come inside of Sam's vagina. She had to rub him by hand, vigorously, using hand lotion, to get him to climax. It was a humiliating experience for him. Even worse, his penis was not large enough to make Sam climax. She had to pretend to climax in his presence, so his feelings would not be hurt, and masturbate in private later to finish herself off.

  What put the most salt in his wounds, however was the fact that while he hadn't been fully restored, Sam had. Dunlop 4's final treatment had restored Sam to all her former glory, while Gavin, as he bitterly complained, still "had the shrunken penis of a 70 year old".

  The problem with their sex life impacted their marriage. Sam tried to tell herself that they needed to give it time, and i
t would recover. But as she sat on the toilet touching herself after another decidedly miserable sex session with Gavin, she had to admit to herself that Gavin could not sexually satisfy her, and probably never would. Suddenly, she started to think about her experience with the Krions. When she and Jack, and the plant... when he pumped into the plant... and the plant sympathetically pumped into her... she closed her eyes, thinking about it, rubbing her clit furiously, and before long she had to stop herself from moaning aloud as she came.

  This soon became a pattern. Before long she found she was only able to climax when she thought about... about.....

  ********

  Sex.

  Melinda Vester loved sex.

  She had discovered that at an early age. Of course, everyone loved sex, but Melinda loved a lot of it. She couldn't get enough.

  She methodically worked her way through a third of her high school class before she realized that she had more than a passing interest in the subject.

  So, while she theoretically went to college (The University of Southern California), in actuality she started pursing her real career. She became a stripper, and discovered it was very lucrative. She discovered it was even more lucrative when she gave out extra favors to well paying clients, and so she barely noticed it when she also became a whore.

  But not just any whore.

  A high class one.

  Melinda didn't just give her body to anyone. She gave herself on yachts, and in mansions, and in cozy back rooms of fancy nightclubs. She earned up to 2,000 credits a night. She was incredibly successful.

  The job had hazards, of course. With every client, there was a risk of disease, for example. But nowadays there was a cure to most every kind of social disease, so the risk was minimal.

  So Melinda thought.

  One day, she was on Michael Burnhem's boat. He was a tall, muscular black man who had had a very successful career playing nuclear basketball for the Santa Monica Aardvarks. She should have noticed something about Michael's smile which was unusual. "I have a surprise for you," he had said.

  "Oh? I love surprises."

  Usually that meant a bonus, like a necklace, or earrings.

  But as Michael guided her to the bedroom on his yacht, she realized it was one of those kind of surprises. He probably wanted anal. Well, he would have to pay extra for that.

  But Michael surprised her again by just having the most typical kind of sex. He got to it quickly enough, without the usual foreplay, which should have been another warning sign.

  They had sex in the dim light of his cabin. Melinda tried to wrap her arms around his back, but Michael pulled back for some reason. In general, he was acting a little strange. But then he got down to business. As he was plowing into her, she felt something odd inside of her. She frowned, but didn't give it much thought, until Michael cried out, and climaxed.

  And then, as Michael pulled out, she felt it.

  Something, a creepy crawling something, inside her vagina, which was crawling out of it now, snaking at the edge of her labial lips. Melinda cried out and tried to pluck it away, whatever it was, but Michael suddenly held her down, preventing her from using her arms.

  "Hey!" she said, trying to move. "Let me go!"

  "In just a moment," said Michael.

  She felt the thing, whatever it was, moving to her clitoris. For a moment it almost felt good, like she was being stimulated.

  It did feel good. She was being stimulated.

  "Ah," said Melinda, lying back.

  "Ah," she said again, as she felt it. It was like lips, sucking her gently down there.

  "Good girl," said Michael, releasing her as he saw her body relax. "That's a good girl."

  "What's happening to me?" said Melinda, feeling one orgasm after another.

  "You're being trained," said Michael, and then by chance he turned his back on her for a moment, and she saw something, a big round something pulsating on her back.

  But Melinda didn't have time to think about it, because she felt wave after wave of pleasure in her clitoris. This continued for several minutes. Her eyes rolled up into her head, and she had a smile of pure bliss on her face.

  "Did you enjoy that?" Michael asked, some time later.

  Melinda nodded. But she still sat cross legged and opened her folds to see what was there.

  It looked like some kind of worm, wrapped around her clitoris. She reached with two fingers to pluck it out, but she felt a sharp stab of pain, when she pulled on it. Taking a deep breath, she tried to pull it from the other side. This time the pain was even more intense, like her clitoris was being cut in half.

  "No, you can't do that," said Michael.

  "What... what is it?" she asked.

  "It is part the Hive," said Michael. "Soon you will be too." He smiled at her. "You can get dressed now."

  Melinda got dressed and left. She didn't even wait to collect her payment. She would go to the doctor tomorrow and get this thing removed.

  When she got home she looked at it under a good light in the bathroom. It was indeed a worm, snaked around her clitoris. It was so sensitive now that when she even tried to touch it, she would wince in pain. No, better to let Doctor Smithers handle this.

  She reached for her comm, and started to speak his name to the dialer. "Doctor-" but her voice was cut off, and the comm dropped from her hand, as she felt a stabbing pain in her vagina. She fell to the floor, grabbing her crotch.

  The pain slowly dissipated. It was impossible to ignore the connection. This worm... this thing inside of her was intelligent. It knew she was calling the doctor. There was no way it could know, but it did.

  How could she get it off of her?

  Melinda got in her air car and started to drive, apparently aimlessly. But her route took her closer and closer to the local hospital. When the parking lot was in sight, she was about to turn into it, when she felt a stabbing pain in her groin. She cried out and slammed the brakes, shopping short and barely avoiding behind hit by the car behind her.

  It knew.

  Melinda went home. She picked up her comm and decided to call Jenelle. Jenelle would know what to do. Jenelle was an experienced whore who had taken Melinda under her wing one night while they were sharing some high grade synthetic Weed.

  Melinda picked up the comm and started to say "Jenelle", when again she was incapacitated by a sharp pain. She put down the comm.

  "All right, all right," she said, rubbing her crotch. "I get the message. What is it you want from me?"

  Suddenly, as if in answer, an image formed in her brain. An image of Michael.

  The thing wanted her to go back to Michael.

  Maybe Michael would remove it. He would surely want something in return, of course, but at this point, Melinda would do virtually anything to get it off.

  So she got in her air car and started off to the pier. As she got closer and closer she started to feel a light stimulation on her clitoris. It felt good. She realized she was being rewarded for choosing the proper path.

  When she got on Michael's boat, he seemed unsurprised to see her.

  "What will it take to get this thing off me?" she asked.

  "Come inside and I'll show you," said Michael.

  She cautiously followed him inside. He again took her to his dimly lit cabin.

  "Please lean against the wall, please," said Michael pleasantly.

  It was something kinky. She knew it. Melinda leaned with her back against the wall.

  "No, the other way," said Michael.

  Melinda frowned at him but leaned against the wall, with her hands splayed on it.

  "So nice of you to wear such a beautiful backless dress," he said, letting a hand rub against her back.

  Anal. He must be going for-

  Suddenly Melinda felt an odd sensation on her back. A cold, slightly wet sensation. And then the feeling of something crawling.

  She knew without looking. It was another one of those creepy crawling things. It was moving up her back n
ow.

  She fled to the bathroom, and looked in the mirror. Sure enough, it was another worm, which looked identical to the first, and it was now positioned between her shoulder blades. She tried to reach with her hands to pluck it off, but she couldn't reach that far back.

  "You can't remove it," said Michael casually. "Even if you could reach it, you couldn't touch it."

  "What have you done to me?" Melinda cried.

  "I have kept my promise," said Michael. "Look for your first one. It's gone."

  Melinda, giving Michael a wary look, sat down on the toilet and lifted her dress. A woman in her profession rarely wore panties, unless the client specifically asked for it. She spread her pubic folds and looked at her clitoris. The worm was gone.

  Melinda looked up at Michael, and smiled with gratitude. Then she frowned. She felt something crawling on her hip. She lifted up her dress further, and saw the first worm. It was slowly making its way to her back. She put her fingers around it, to pluck it off-

  and felt a terrible bolt of pain, through her body. She stumbled back on the toilet seat.

  "Just relax. It will be in place in just a moment," said Michael soothingly.

  It took more than a moment for Melinda to recover from the pain. When she did, she stood up and looked at her back in the mirror.

  Now there were two worms, lying side by side, between her shoulder blades.

  "What have you done to me?" She said."What are you doing to me?"

  "I'm helping you join the Hive," said Michael. "By the way, you may want to avoid backless dresses from now on." He smiled at her. "You can go now. I'll see you tomorrow."

  "Michael-"

  "I'll see you, tomorrow," said Michael, with a certain finality.

  Melinda's mind raced as she headed home. What could she do? The creature could apparently deliver pain just as easily from her back as between her legs. Even more so. Before she could only feel pain between her legs; now she could feel it across her entire body. She spent a long time looking at the two worms in her bathroom mirror.

  She was unable to tell anyone about them. She couldn't remove them. She couldn't go to the doctor. What could she do?