Alien Storm

by Ken Bebelle

  Nine

  Pain and Pleasure

  Jonesy

  Jonesy used to think that he and pain were old friends.

  Ever since that grenade exploded in his face, pain was a day to day thing. Just one more thing to pack in his ruck. Then Stanley had offered him a shot at a new implant to restore his vision and hearing, and he learned that his previous pain had simply been a light appetizer to the main course.

  He’d never told Cam, but the implant really. fucking. hurt. All the time, without pause. Using the implant spiked his pain, causing some really good head splitters, and also made him vomit half the time, just for kicks.

  Most of the time, Jonesy managed to tune it out, the way you tune out bad music your bunkmates won’t stop playing. It’s still there, still annoying, but at least it’s not screaming in your face anymore. Sure, every so often, things would flare up, but he had it under control.

  But today Jonesy found out that pain had been holding out on him, big time.

  Bright lines of fire traced an outline of his face, and silver hot spikes slid into his arms and legs, crucifying him to the table. The heat in his arms and legs dulled to a low throb, but the pain tracing around his face continued to build. The pulsing agony crushed down on his head. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t open his mouth. He managed only a high, whispering whimper through his nose.

  As the Ringhead worked, the light above his bed flared white hot, beating down on him with savage intensity. It was brighter, hotter, more merciless than the sun. It was like repeatedly watching a gun discharge directly into his face. He knew his sight was gone again. In the back of his mind he knew his artificial cornea must be burning out from the brutal light, the tiny circuits giving up.

  The cornea did not give up. It kept feeding the unblinking sun directly into his brain, scorching away the shadows in his head and scouring his mind. He continued to whimper, it was his only outlet for his misery. Runners of snot dripped down the sides of his face. He felt as if he had been nailed to the bed for an eternity, the bright light hollowing him out like a gourd. He would soon be a dried husk, his sanity burned away like water on a hot stone.

  There, in the featureless white expanse that was now his mind, the Mother returned to him. Consumed by pain, Jonesy lay there and watched as she entered his mind. He tried to push her out and she passed through him as if he were made of cobwebs. There, in the expansive void of his mind, she took hold of his mind, and begin to re-mold him like wet clay.

  Jonesy awoke and found himself again in a featureless white void. His heart thumped against his chest, the contractions harsh and nearly painful, as if he’d just awoken from a terrible nightmare. Gooseflesh erupted over his skin, along with a sheen of clammy sweat. He blinked and sandpaper scraped over his eyes. The blur of whiteness began to swim with vague shadows. He inhaled, the rasping sound of his breath disturbing the quiet. It sounded alien and unhealthy to his ears. The chill air smelled flat and stale, sterile lab air recycled too many times.

  He traced his hand along the surface beneath him, and found he was still on one of the alien beds, but no longer restrained. More blinking and his eyes started to clear. Sluggish tears rolled down his cheeks on cool tracks. Jonesy twisted, trying to sit up. His shoulders and spine popped and cracked as he struggled up.

  As he sat up a wave of vertigo surged from his gut to swirl around his head. His neck cracked, a brittle and fragile thing, like spun glass. His head felt like it was two sizes too large, ten pounds of shit in an eight pound bag. He smiled, grimaced. The idea of throwing up in the Ringhead’s version of a clean room might be a petty victory, but Jonesy would take what he could get. He threw caution to the wind, and heaved himself upright.

  A clenching spasm in his gut immediately doubled him over. A bitter tide churned up his throat and ejected from his mouth and nose, the bile burning his nostrils. Jonesy coughed and gagged as vomit splattered over the side of the bed, down to the floor. He knuckled away the spit from his mouth and looked around.

  Details of the room slowly came into focus. The same alien biomech walls surrounded him. The room was tiny, barely big enough to fit the bed, with only a few feet of space around it. The bed was short, barely a foot or two from the ground. A single, glaring light source shone down from the ceiling. The intensity of the light made it impossible to him to see the actual ceiling. Other than the rasp of his breathing, he heard no other sounds. None of the walls appeared to have a door.

  Alien jail. I’m in fucking alien jail.

  Instead of a dayglow jumpsuit, he was still dressed in his scavenged fatigues. He pulled up his shirt, ran his hand over his body, and found nothing amiss. He was bedsore, but otherwise couldn’t find anything off.

  But something did feel wrong. He was in one of those dreams where you go to work without your pants on. Something critical was missing from him, but a thorough exam revealed nothing missing. And yet he kept turning around, as if checking for something behind him.

  He brought his hand to his face, the touch of his fingers tentative. He needed a shave, but the stubble wasn’t bad. He ran his hand up and over his head, and found nothing out of the ordinary. No alien mind control helmet, no horrific surgical scars. Just smooth, unblemished skin, just like always.

  He rubbed his face and eyes. Though exhausted, his body hummed with energy. How long have I been out?

  He took a deep breath. The cold air bit his lungs, invigorating him. Then he noticed he wasn’t shivering. It had been as cold as a damn meat locker before. He looked down at his thrashed fatigues. They seemed to be doing the job now when earlier he had been wishing for his thermal gear. He rolled his shoulders, tilting his head from side to side. Nothing hurt. Just the absence of pain was enough to slow his thoughts. Am I still dreaming?

  He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this good. Like he could run a marathon good.

  He rubbed his eyes again and his hand froze over his face. Slowly, he traced a finger around the orbit of his right eye. A brief flash of memory of a blinding light and sharp instruments. He flinched away from the recollection, clapping his hand over his eyes, certain to his core of imminent agony.

  Nothing.

  Jonesy opened his hand slowly, his eyes darting madly, peering between his fingers. His fingers seemed to move of their own accord, probing the lines and ridges of his face, tracing the old scars along the neural implant. He slid off the bed to his knees, trembling. Hope flared, a pinpoint of pure white light in a vast field of blackness.

  He blinked, slowly and deliberately. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a trickle of moisture escape the corner of his eyelid. His implant was there. As always, even when inactive, its presence was like a live television tuned to a dead station.

  An upwelling of emotion he couldn’t stop burst forth, as involuntary as a sneeze. The absence of pain gave way to a euphoric rush, and the relief he felt battled with the fear of the pain coming back. The conflict of joy and anxiety was enough to make him weep.

  His pain was gone. It was like coming down stairs and missing the last step. His old pain was erased, leaving behind a oddly shaped vacuum of uncertainty. He whooped, but it came out as a rattling, hacking cough. The sound bounced back to him from the close walls.

  ::Jones?::

  He spun, looking around him. No one else was in the small room. Yet the voice sounded very close.

  ::Jones?::

  He continued to turn in place, trying to identify the source of the voice. The sound was flat, and he couldn’t determine the direction it was coming from.

  He called out, “Hello?”

  His voice came out thin and scratchy from disuse. He coughed, trying to get his voice to work. He tried again but it was impossible to talk above a bare whisper. Jonesy got to his feet and shuffled to the wall. The surface was cold, dry, and deep blue-black, like the rest of the ship. The harsh light from above cast stark shadows beneath various protrusions on the wall. Nothing looked like a door, window, or even a service
panel.

  He coughed again, forcing out a loud whisper. “Who’s there?”

  Faint voices tickled at his ear, whirling him around. Each time, the voice sounded like it was right behind him.

  What the bloody fuck is going on?

  ::Jonesy! It is Daina!::

  He kept turning, trying to find where her voice was coming from.

  The voice was getting panicky, erratic. ::Jonesy! I don’t know how, but I can hear you. Your thoughts. Say something!::

  Cold dread walked up his spine. The panic from the voice was trickling into him, tuning his senses to high alert. He stopped moving and crouched low, eyes flicking to the corners of the room. What the fuck is this?

  ::Please! Jonesy! Say my name! Tell me I’m not going crazy!::

  Jesus fuck. I’m going crazy.

  ::Jones! Talk to me, please! I woke up in a small room. It looks like a brig. There are no doors! I need you to come find me!::

  The voice was getting steadier, and the feeling of panic and claustrophobia was diminishing. When he stopped to think about it, someone else talking in his head probably wasn’t even in the top ten of the strangest things to happen in the last twenty-four hours.

  God, talk about the blind leading the blind. We’re screwed.

  ::Bitch fuck! I know you can hear me, Jones! These Ringhead mother bitches have screwed with our heads. Say something oblyduk!::

  Heh. She continued cursing a stream of vile Slavic. Jonesy’s Nana would have been proud. He searched for the voice in his head, and a door in his mind opened. Daina’s voice went to a full 3D stereo audio lesson in vulgarity. ::Daina.::

  The cursing stopped mid sentence and the feeling of relief flooding from her knocked Jonesy on his rear. He heard her crying in his head, waves of joy, grief, and anger washing over him. It was damn strange. He knew, understood, these were her emotions, and yet he was somehow experiencing them as if they were his own. It was like there was some strange, porous membrane between their minds, allowing for this verbal and emotional traffic.

  He stood, and shook his head. If he just sat there, the force of her emotions would run roughshod over his mind, overwhelming him. ::Daina. Get it together. You’re turning me into a wreck.::

  She steadied herself, gasping to control her breathing.

  Yes, he definitely sensed her breathing. This was damn odd, and also fascinating. He wondered if he could see through her eyes. Jonesy concentrated on the feeling of Daina’s breathing. He felt the rough material of her jacket, scratching her back and across her breasts. The rhythmic pulse of her heart, once he found it, his own heart stuttered to match pace with hers.

  Th-thump … Th-thump … T-thump … thump … thump … thump …

  As their heart rates synchronized his sensation of Daina intensified. She was… kneeling. She was kneeling on the floor. He couldn’t see anything, but he just barely heard the sound of her breathing, coming to him through her ears, and then through their thought connection.

  He reached out to feel her breathing, and like his heart, his breath hitched and matched hers. When their breathing aligned, their connection strengthened further. His pulse beat a crescendo in his neck with his rising excitement. He was beginning to see hazy shapes, to see what she was seeing. He felt like he was she sitting next to her, he sensed the presence of her body radiating against his exposed skin. He fell into Daina, his mind flowing into hers.

  Daina grunted, like she’d been punched in the gut. ::Jones!::

  His heart raced, pounding out a staccato rhythm in time with Daina’s. His pulse pounded in his neck. Jonesy realized his fists were clenched, fingernails digging painfully into his palms.

  Daina gasped for breath and a sensual moan escaped her lips. Her hips rocked, her nipples hardening. Holy shit!

  He unclenched his fists, felt a sensation of releasing a hold on gathered fabric, letting it slide like water through his fingers. Their heartbeats slowed as he took his foot off the accelerator. His mind flowed out of Daina and he became aware again of only his own body. His mouth was dry, his back clenched, and he had a painfully hard erection.

  Jonesy laid down and stared into the bright light, feeling the sweat cooling on his arms. ::What the fuck was that??::

  More gasping from Daina. ::I am not sure. But it was fucking zdorovo.::

  He couldn't disagree with her there. But his mind found the sinister angles, as it always did. Before he could say anything, a bright red line appeared on one of his walls and the door unsealed. A puff of extra chill external air wafted in at floor level and washed over him.

  The door lifted and through the mist the tiny Ringhead walked in. It was flanked behind by two Hunters. A complex cocktail of satisfaction and amusement flowed from the small alien’s mind and rushed into him like a wall of turbulent water.

  ::Fuck. Why does it feel like my mom just walked in on me?::

  He was marched back to the lab and secured to the tables again.

  The small alien...the Mother...it came to the side of Jonesy’s bed and stood there a moment, gazing upon him with its dead eyes. Jonesy found the sight of the alien’s eyes strangely familiar now, less disconcerting. It reached up on scaly hand and gripped the end of his amputated arm. Its firm grip squeezed the end of his arm, and power, energy, flowed through his arm from the Mother. The hair on his arms and neck stood on end as the power built. His teeth began vibrating in his head and he clenched his jaw to keep them from chattering.

  Still the flow of power increased. His breath came in panting beats through his teeth and he bucked against his restraints, arching his back as far as it would go. His hips lifted off the table, and his shoulders strained to the limit. The power leaked from his pores now, his arm felt like it was dipped in acid and flayed with razors.

  He reached through his mind for Daina, but couldn’t find her. He faintly heard screaming, but that might be him screaming. He wasn’t sure.

  As the pain reached for yet another crescendo, the door to the lab opened, and one of the scientist aliens came in, followed by two Hunters. Even through the bloody haze of his pain, Jonesy could still make out the strident emotions passing between them.

  The scientist… no, that wasn’t right. It was more like, an engineer.

  For a moment, the wave of pain ebbed, leaving behind a dull throb in his arm. The tiny Mother alien turned away from and directed her gaze at the Engineer. Joney’s mind began to hum, a low level of static as if he had comms on the fritz. What the hell?

  This was nothing like how he had connected with Daina. Instead, it was like he couldn’t quite connect at all, but he could catch occasional spikes as the sound roared briefly. Jeezus, am I hearing the aliens talk?

  Blessed relief rippled up his arm as the Mother ignored Jonesy. The site where she gripped his arm radiated icy waves upward before fading into numbness. As he lay there, panting, the sounds in his head began to come together, no longer random noise. He strained to make sense of it, and in exhaustion closed his eyes.

  Images began flooding the back of his eyelids. Alien landscapes, the Engineer collecting other humans. The Mother alien waving its arms at two more Engineers. Just how many of these things were there?

  Jonesy couldn’t hear anything other than the rush of blood beating in his ears interspersed with the crazy loud white noise blares. Maybe it wasn’t talking. But he could swear that he understood the tone, like the feelings between the aliens in these montages playing against his eyelids.

  They weren’t testing him or any of the others. They were just taking them apart, and seeing how they could put them back together. Like psychotic auto mechanics.

  Jonesy couldn’t understand the Engineer, but sensed anger. Despite that anger, the Engineer’s demeanor seemed deferential of the Mother. Jonesy felt the flow of communication between them like a dangerous undertow. He was only perceiving a fraction of what was going on.

  The Mother grew haughty, indignant, as if it were mocking the Engineer.

  Jonesy fel
t unease, not from the Engineer, but from the Hunters. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what.

  The Engineer pleaded, begged.

  Jonesy gagged. The power inside him was going to spill out through his eyes. He struggled to stay conscious and understand what was happening.

  The Mother took a step towards the Engineer, stopped and looked back to Jonesy. She took her hand off his arm and pushed her mind into his.

  ::Learn. After.::

  The power slacked off, and Jonesy breathed more easily.

  The Mother tilted its head slightly towards the Engineer. The two Hunters guarding the door leapt into motion. Elbow spikes and claws whipped back and forth, opening necks and bellies. The two Hunters with the Engineer collapsed to the deck in a pile of twitching limbs and quivering organs. The Mother’s Hunters tackled the Engineer and bore it down, pinning it on its back.

  Mother walked over to the Engineer, its small arms raised and its hands shining with the piercing blue-white light. The Engineer begged.

  The Mother ignored it.

  Biomech cables sprang from beneath the deck plates and coiled around the Engineer, leaving its head free. Desperate now, the Engineer bucked and twisted, gnashing its teeth at whatever it could reach. The cables lifted it up until it hung upside down, its head level with the Mother’s head.

  The Mother exuded disappointment and contempt. It thrust its small hands into the eyes of the Engineer. Even several feet away, the arcane power flowing from the Engineer to the Mother raised every hair on Jonesy’s body. The Mother’s back arched in seeming ecstasy as it received the power.

  It turned its small head back and looked again at Jonesy. He was straining to keep himself off the bed enough to see.

  The Mother reached out. ::Sleep.::

  Darkness swallowed him whole.

  Ten

  Descending