“I’ve been looking for you,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you.”
Dain frowned as he walked slowly toward him. Instead of hugging him, though, he snapped off the cuffs. Ben reached out to give him hug, but Dain took a step back.
“I saw you run from the guards at the bar,” Dain said. “Why do I see your face in my dreams?”
Ben blinked. “What?”
“I’ve seen you in my dreams. Or nightmares. I’m not sure which. So, tell me why.”
“What’s wrong with you, Dain?”
Dain reeled back. “How do you know my name?”
Ben gaped at him. Was Dain playing some type of game? This wasn’t the reunion fantasy he’d dreamed about at all! “Are you fucking with me?”
“Tell me!” Dain yelled. “Every night you drive me crazy. Who are you?”
“I’m your husband,” Ben whispered, confused and wary. Dain didn’t say anything. He simply stared hard at him. “Why don’t you remember me?”
“I have a brain tumor. I don’t remember much of my past.”
“Who told you that you have a brain tumor?”
“Doctor Sven Robinson. He’s been giving me treatments. Injections.”
Ben remembered the nanotech injected in him, and what they had done to his body. Fear filled him as he took a step closer. “Listen to me. You don’t have a brain tumor. You’ve got to stop those injections.”
“They’re saving me.”
“No,” Ben said firmly. “They’re not. You’re a healthy man. We met in Florida and have been married for a year. It was love at first sight. Please, Dain, think.”
Several moments passed as they stared at one another, and Ben silently urged Dain to remember him. Remember them.
“I don’t remember you,” Dain said softly. “But … my mind wants to remember you. And my body. I have this urge to hug you. Kiss you. Please. Help me to remember.”
Ben held out his hand. Dain stared at it for a moment before taking it. The spark that had been there the first moment they’d touched still arced between them.
“Come on, you two,” Fern said. “I have a place you can hide. I’m not sure what your story is, but you can tell it to me when we get out of the open.”
He walked away, giving a wave over his shoulder. Ben and Dain looked at each other, shrugged, then followed.
Chapter Fifteen
Fern led them deeper into The Mountain, to the housing section where small apartments had been burrowed throughout the mountainside. Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention, for which Ben was grateful. He didn’t want to answer a lot of questions.
“Do you live here?” Dain asked Fern.
Fern shook his head. “My friend does. Just two more doors up. You can lie low for a bit until you figure things out.”
He stopped in front of a door and punched in a code. It swished open, revealing a very small apartment. Not much was inside. A small kitchenette, a table with two chairs, and a small, uncomfortable love seat. Toward the back of the room were two doors that Ben assumed had to be the bathroom and bedroom. All-in-all, it was a very drab, depressing living quarters.
“I thought our place back in Las Vegas was small,” he said, giving Dain a slight, conspiratorial grin. Dain, however, just frowned.
“You two stay here,” Fern said. “I’m going to go back out and make sure we ditched the NFOP.”
Ben spun around to his friend. “Thank you, Fern. Really. If you hadn’t been there … I don’t know. I think I’d be caught by now.”
“What are friends for?” Fern asked with a shrug of his shoulders. “Just stay here. I’ll be back shortly.”
He left quickly, the door sliding behind him soundlessly, leaving Ben and Dain all alone. Ben was a little afraid of this new Dain. Not that he thought his husband would ever hurt him, but it terrified him that Dain might not remember him anymore. How could their life together be wiped out? Turning back to him, he saw Dain stare at him intensely, arms folded over his chest.
“You say we’re married,” Dain stated.
Ben nodded.
“That we’ve been married a year.”
Again, Ben nodded.
“I don’t remember that,” Dain said. “Although I don’t have very many memories. It’s the brain tumor.”
“I don’t know who told you that, but it’s not true.”
“Maybe. I have this jumble in my head that seems to get bigger every day. Flashes of things I think I should know but don’t. People whose faces seem familiar, but I can’t, for the life of me, put a name to. Like you. You’re always there, and for the longest time, I thought you were some made up person, a way for my mind to combine everything into some semblance of order. But … here you are. Real.”
“I am real, Dain.” Ben walked toward him, until they stood face to face. Dain was a little taller, so Ben looked up. “Touch my face.”
Slowly, Dain unfolded his arms, letting one hang by his side as he reached out and placed a fingertip on Ben’s cheek.
“See?” Ben whispered. “I’m here.”
He let all his guards drop as they stared into one another’s eyes, allowing all his love to shine bright. He didn’t want to hide a single thing. Dain’s finger left his skin, but only far enough so he could cup Ben’s cheek, cradling his face.
“That’s the look I dream about,” Dain murmured. “I’d wake up yearning for that look and felt so empty when it disappeared with the dawn. The medicine I took always erased you in the morning, but you always came back to me. I think I was metabolizing it faster and faster, but in a way, I didn’t care, because that meant I could come back to you.”
“Listen to me, Dain,” Ben said softly. “Sector forced us to part. I had PWP, and they agreed to cure me if you went back to them. I came to Mars to find you, to bring you back. The resistance is working to bring down the corrupt aspects of Sector. People like Sven Robinson have manipulated the system.”
Dain frowned. “You came to Mars for me?”
Ben nodded. “Of course I did. I love you. I would go to a thousand planets searching for you if I had to.”
Dain closed his eyes, as if in pain, before leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “My orders have been to hunt the resistance down. To destroy it. But … I can’t destroy you.”
“Because you love me,” Ben whispered. “As I love you. Please come back to me.”
In slow movement toward each other, they bridged the small gap that lingered between their lips. At first, they simply pressed their mouths together, building in intensity until they opened for one another. The kiss might have started out tentative, but it deepened immediately as their tongues entwined. Dain cupped his face, holding him close, and Ben’s heart hammered with excitement and happiness. Finally, he’d found the other half of his soul. It was like being born again.
When the kiss broke, they hugged one another tightly.
“I want to do a lot more, but we don’t have the time right now,” Dain murmured in his ear.
Ben smiled. “I know. But we’re together once more. I don’t ever want to let you go again.”
“Why did we part?”
“You did it to help me. To save me.”
“I think I’d do it all over again to make sure you were safe.”
Ben pulled back far enough to look at his husband. “From now on, we stay together. There’s a transport leaving in a few days, heading back to Earth, and we’re going to be on it.”
“But I don’t remember,” Dain muttered. “At least, not all of it. It’s all fragments. I’m going off of how my body feels, my heart, and dreams. Something deep within me is drawn to you and wants you, and that’s what I’m going on right now.”
“Those fragments might not be cohesive right now, but one day they will be. Trust me, Dain. It’s you and me, forever.”
He stopped talking when the door swished open, and Fern came back in. He panted a little, grinned, and held up his hands. Dain tensed, and following the sudden
odd vibe in the air, Ben stiffened as well.
“Good news, the police aren’t searching for you anymore,” Fern said.
“Is there bad news?” Dain asked.
“Actually, yes,” he said, looking directly at Ben. “For you.”
Two NFOP men came into the apartment behind Fern, who moved to each side of the small room, weapons raised and trained on them.
“Sorry, friend,” Fern continued. “I’ve got four mouths to feed at home.”
Ben glared at the man. “So, what happened to kid number five?”
Fern thought for a moment and then laughed. “Okay. You got me there. I don’t have any kids at all, actually, but I do want the bounty on your head. I recognized you from Sector pictures when I stood on the docks waiting to board the transport. Wondered why you didn’t use a glamor cube.”
Ben couldn’t tell him that Doctor Josson forbade him to use it because of the parasite. They didn’t want the fetus exposed to that type of shielding for long periods of time.
“Hands up,” ordered one of the policemen.
He and Dain obeyed.
“Turn around.” When they complied, the policeman walked up behind Ben to handcuff him. “By authorization of the New Force Order code one seven six three, I hereby detain you for further process—”
As he took hold of Ben’s wrists, Dain made his move. With lightning fast reflexes, he hit the policeman in the temple, knocking him out instantly. Dain yanked Ben down just as he pulled the blaster free from the unconscious man’s holster, and fired, hitting the other cop immediately. The entire thing lasted about five seconds, before Ben could even blink.
Dain stood and aimed the barrel at Fern. Fern’s eyes widened with fear, and he held out his hands.
“Wait!”
But Dain never gave him the opportunity to beg for his life. He fired, and Fern fell down, his eyes staring sightlessly upward.
“You have terrible taste in friends,” Dain said.
Ben stood, his legs a little shaky. “We should get out of here.”
“You okay?” Dain asked, frowning at him. “You look pale.”
“It’s not every day I learn I’m a wanted man with a bounty on my head. It’s a little unnerving.”
Dain grinned at him. “Come on, we need to find a better place to hide. Five days is a long time to wait while being hunted.”
He held out his hand, and Ben took it. Dain hit the button to open the door, but it didn’t budge. Another try resulted in a red dot blinking at them.
“What’s that mean?” Ben asked.
Dain aimed the blaster at the locking panel, but all of a sudden, a dense cloud began filling the area, streaming in from the numerous vents through the room.
“Damn it!” Dain muttered. “Cover your nose and mouth.”
Ben coughed, and the fumes shot straight into his brain, making him feel very woozy. Dain once more aimed the blaster and fired into the panel, but the door didn’t open. The last hope of escape denied.
Are we going to die?
Ben’s legs turned to jelly, and he fell to his knees, unable to stand any longer. The world spun around him, and he hated that if this was his last moments alive, he hadn’t told Dain about their child.
“Dain,” he whispered, reaching out.
“Damn it! Ben! No!”
Hands took hold of his, but that was the last of his strength. Having that small comfort helped, though. He knew he wasn’t alone. Ben fell back, still clutching Dain’s hands, and the two landed in a pile with the larger man on top of his smaller frame.
The world went black.
Chapter Sixteen
A flutter danced through his belly. Light. Tickling. It disappeared for a moment, then came back. So faint, a mere brushing of wings. A heartbeat sounded around him, racing fast. Almost too fast to be a normal heart. Ben opened his eyes to see a 4D image of a baby, or what looked like a baby. It was way too small to actually be a fully formed child, but it had a head, fingers. Arms. Toes. And a heartbeat, going strong.
This wasn’t a parasite.
It was the child inside him.
Wonder filled him, nothing short of amazing. This hadn’t been something that had ever crossed his mind, that he’d see the person who would be his son or daughter. He had never thought he’d have one, being an androphile. Sure, people adopted. There was surrogacy. But this … it was real. Tears filled Ben’s eyes as he stared at his child. He or she was far too small to survive outside the womb, but one day it would be born. A part of him as well as a part of Dain. How the miracle came to be seemed like such a moot point because in the end, it really didn’t matter. This child was real, and it was alive.
A different type of love infused every cell in his body. Not the love he felt for Dain, or his family, this was something completely different. It was all-consuming and awe-inspiring. It made him cry from the simplistic beauty that opened his eyes to something new, something far greater than his own life. A protective surge rose up, and he brought his hands up to cover his belly, as if that was enough to shield his child from the harshness of the world.
“You are a scientific marvel,” came a smooth, deep voice. “We’ve tried this procedure on many individuals, and you’re the first test subject to produce life.”
Ben tilted his head up in an effort to see the person talking, but his head wouldn’t go back that far. Instead, the man walked around, coming to stand on his right side, and Ben saw an ordinary looking man. Neatly combed white hair, glasses on the bridge of his nose.
“I’m Doctor Sven Robinson,” the man said. “Nice to finally meet you, Ben Stockton.”
“Where’s Dain?”
“Mister Cardile is still sleeping off the effects of the gas,” Robinson replied. “When Trask had told me he’d found two ideal candidates for our next batch of experiments, I was skeptical. We’d had several failures, as I said, so now we need to analyze why you were able to conceive, and they were not.”
Ben found it a little unsettling to know Sector had been using people as guinea pigs, but he was more nauseated at what he was implying. “You plan on dissecting me?”
“Not while you’re alive.” Robinson smiled. Ben shivered at the lack of humanity in the man’s eyes. “First you must come to term, and then we’ll see about who to breed with you next. The most unique factor I’ve discovered is an enzyme in your blood I’ve labeled as number one sixty-three. Now I’m curious if Mister Cardile’s genes had a role in activating that enzyme, or if you and your cousin happen to be distinct individuals.”
Horror washed through Ben, hearing about the sadistic plans for him and his baby. Desperation drove him to try to escape, but as he tried moving off the table, he realized he was belted onto the exam bed. The 4D model above him disappeared.
“No need to struggle,” Robinson said calmly. He walked over to prepare a syringe. “You need to conserve your strength.”
“What are you going to do with that syringe?” Ben demanded.
“You need to relax to undergo all the tests I’ve prepared.”
Ben struggled even harder at that. “What … fucking … tests? Let go of me! I’m sure it’s against the law to tie me up like this!”
“Stop,” Robinson ordered. “Stop wiggling. My scans are still running. And you’re a wanted man, Mister Stockton. I’m perfectly within the legal aspect to detain a possible terrorist.”
“You and I both know those charges are bogus.”
“Yes, but the NFOP work for Sector, so basically, you’re mine.” He walked over and took hold of Ben’s forearm, which was the only thing not strapped down. “Don’t worry, nothing will harm the fetus. That’s too valuable a commodity to damage.”
“No! I don’t want this!”
But there wasn’t anything he could do as he watched the hypo inject its liquid into his body. Within seconds his vision began to swim, the edges grew black, and once more he succumbed to a knock-out agent.
****
Dain paced his roo
m. The waiting felt like someone hammering nails slowly into his body, an excruciating torment designed to drive him mad. Thoughts of escape ran through his mind every second of the day. He didn’t have a doubt that he’d be able to execute any one of his ideas, but something inside him still seemed loyal to Sector because it made him hesitate. He half wondered if it was the nanotech Ben had talked about. What if the little robots had not only wiped his memory, they had also implanted a loyalty chip? He needed answers. He wasn’t getting any, and it made him want to fight down and dirty.
He’d been confined to quarters for a few days, at least by his calculations. He’d had no contact with the outside, not even at meal delivery, so time became an abstract concept. His food came via an evac tube, so without any type of personal stimuli, all he had to pass the time was exercise and the rampant churning of thoughts. Knowing their five-day window was just about up, Dain knew he had to get out of the room.
So, when his dinner arrived, with a fork and spoon present, he calmly took it, shifted his bed frame over and stood on it to reach the only electronic device in the room. One of the metal prongs bent as he pried off the covering, exposing the wiring inside. Then he took the fork and jammed the metal into the whole electrical box. The thing arced, but it served his purpose as the power light died out. Then he got off the bed and prepared for the next thing.
Gas began entering his room, so he took a deep breath and waited. Discipline served him well, and it didn’t take long for the guards to calmly enter, expecting him to be knocked out. He elbowed one in the face, spun, and took his weapon before the body hit the floor. Armed, he shot the other guard and tore the breather off his face and put it on himself.
Future, Betrayed Page 10