Here

by Zolendz, Christine

Then I dream about Rune, and the desperate way he looked at me when this giant tin coffin lifted off the ground. And how Pious was right, Rune has no care or use for me at all. And I’m a fool to hope he does.

  26

  Kate

  I wake to the hushed sounds of someone moving inside my cell. Diluted sounds of metal slowly grinding against metal and gears locking, softly clicking into place. I remain still, eyes closed. I don’t dare move a single muscle.

  Whatever or whoever it is seems to be doing something on the opposite wall from where I’m lying.

  “You are awake,” a deep mechanical voice utters.

  I lay still and silent, listening. Waiting.

  A whir and hum and two muted steps creak closer.

  “You are awake,” the voice repeats, closer now.

  “No, I’m not,” I shout, opening my eyes into narrow slits. The thing is a little darker than a shadow, hovering over me.

  “You are awake,” it says once again, this time lower and almost questioning.

  The cell is bathed in darkness and the creature’s black shape slowly moves back, busying itself once again with something on the other side of this tin cell.

  A dim light gradually pulses from somewhere on the walls. The source of the light can’t be seen, and yet the walls glow slowly warm and radiant, increasing in brightness. It happens so imperceptibly and as naturally as a real sunrise.

  When the cell is fully lit, I bolt upright on the small bunk. “How long have I been asleep?” I ask in a dry gravelly whisper. Without a window or the ground, I can’t guess the time. I touch my feet to the floor quickly, my body still cocooned in the heavy wool blanket.

  I’m instantly lightheaded and the steel floor is pulling me down. I lean back heavily against the edge of the bunk, trying to steady myself, but the pull of the floor is winning this small gravitational war.

  I slip noiselessly down. My heart drums awkwardly, I feel it in my neck pulsing and racing, then thudding slugglishly slow. I feel drugged. My muscles smart and my lungs ache, they feel hollow, empty.

  The asshole turns around and stands watching me.

  I take a slow deep breath in, trying to gather strength, then I lift my eyes toward his. I can’t read the creature’s features, but I know he can tell mine. And right now, I know his thermal imaging screen is probably sounding alarms about my state of health as the room spins wildly around me.

  “Your body is getting acclimated to being on board,” he states, turning his head and pressing a few more buttons and levers on the wall. I try to watch the things his fingers touch but I keep having to blink my eyelids hard and focus on breathing so as to not, like, drop dead or whatever.

  “The General wants you dressed for feeding,” it says, pointing its silver tipped digits toward a metal pile of limbs on a shelf in the wall.

  “The General?” I laugh, wickedly, getting my bearings back. “General Rune is here?”

  The creature stills. “General Pious,” it says, just above a whisper.

  “Pious is not the general,” I snort, pulling myself up to stand, angry and weak.

  “General Pious is—”

  “A dick?” I interrupt.

  His head tilts at a comedic angle.

  “An asshole? A shithead? An arrogant self-serving dick-juggling thunder cunt?”

  His arms slam down to his sides and his entire body stiffens.

  “Your real general… General Rune, told me your people have never seen flesh before. Not even their own. Take off your mask.”

  “That’s an impossibility. There are airborne pathogens that would decimate our population and—”

  “You really believe that?” I ask, stepping closer.

  “General Rune was expired in this way. The footage was made available.”

  “No!” I scream. “You saw what Pious wanted you to see.”

  “The General wants you dressed for feeding,” it says again, gesturing toward the metal armor.

  “You’re all a bunch of sheep.”

  “The General wants you dressed for feeding,” he demands loudly.

  “What the hell does that mean?” I yell, stumbling against the bunk, head swimming.

  “Get dressed.”

  “Yeah, because that’s the confusing part. Thanks for clearing that up, assmunch.” I steady myself and slide along the wall, making my way to the armor, pushing dozens of buttons and slamming my fists into a dozen more.

  I think the thing laughs at me.

  “Turn around and face the wall,” I screech when I reach the cold steel fabric. “You do not get to watch me get dressed.”

  I step into the armor, dropping the wool blanket to the floor, hoping these idiots don’t have eyes in the back of their masks.

  * * *

  The creature forcibly escorts me into a long oval room with walls covered with curved video screens from floor to ceiling. In the center of the dark room stands a shiny onyx slab of rock that juts out of the floor. Its surface glows with a strange light and a confusing display of numbers and flashing diagrams hovering above it in midair. Pious leans over a kind of three-dimensional map, swiping neon-colored icons through the air with his hands. Hundreds of armored men gather around him, all their attention captivated by giant screens playing footage of the destruction of my planet.

  I hold the mask I was given in my cell at my side—refusing to put it on. No one, not even Pious, notices when I walk in.

  “Sir,” a mask with intricate green scrolled through it asks hesitantly, “everyone is saying that General Rune survived and is still among the ground humans. His faceplate is missing—”

  “We have his faceplate now. We acquired it during the attack. If he survived… This man is an enemy of his own people. He won’t be able to function for long on the ground.”

  “What if he does, sir?”

  “If the coward is still alive, we’ll lure him out.”

  “Sir?”

  “We seem to have something to bait him with. The girl.”

  As soon as the gasp slips past my lips, all those deep-set endlessly black eyes turn toward me.

  27

  Kate

  The silvery mask in my hand drops to the floor and I run.

  Immediately tall shadows fall over me and loud, thudding footsteps are closing in. I don’t look back. There’s no way in hell I’m going to be bait to get someone killed. There’s no damn way I’m staying on board this metal box either. I’m not going to make this easy for them.

  The metal-plated armor molds to the muscles in my body—tightening them—strengthening them. With half their armor on, I could probably run around this ship for hours without tiring.

  I’m dashing in and out of long steel corridors, throwing myself through the hissing hydraulic doors seconds before they close.

  I’m living in a sick, twisted sci-fi movie.

  I chance a quick glance over my shoulder and the long expanse of the hallway is empty, the only movement is a few blinking lights that run low along the walls. “That’s right, alien bitches!” I laugh out loud, spinning around as I slow to a jog.

  A bright flash of steel, and Pious steps out in front of me, slamming a metal hand into the chest plate of my armor. I don’t feel the pain, but I do stumble back in surprise.

  A furious scream erupts from me, frustration and anger coil and lump in my chest. I hadn’t even seen him coming and now his iron fingers are once again a bind around my throat.

  “Quiet,” he says, almost growling the word out. The hand around my neck tightens, taking away any choice I had of staying quiet or not, and his other hand slaps a small bar between my wrists that instantly welds them together. “Now, walk.”

  I take a step and stagger over. Pious slams me against the wall by the throat to keep me standing. He slowly lowers his silvery face closer to mine—the smooth metal clings to his skin revealing hard angular features and full smiling lips. “Your ankles are shackled, as are your hands.”

  I try to speak, but
all I can do is choke out a gasp. I bring my hands up to his, involuntarily trying to pry his hands away so I could take in a deep breath, but the bar between them stops me. It clinks against his armor, and yet I keep trying. Dark black spots start dancing in front of my eyes again, over and over, I clank the metal binds against his armor, trying to keep myself alive.

  I can feel my face heating, and the alien armor that covers my body starts vibrating and shifting over my skin as if trying to help me.

  Pious stills. Such a strange sudden stillness that my eyes dart up into his. I can’t really tell what he’s seeing behind that armor, but whatever it is loosens his hand, letting me inhale deeply.

  “Walk. Small steps,” he says low.

  Within two of my shuffles, Pious pulls me forward and my feet slide out from underneath me. He drags me through the ship until we hit a familiar passage and we’re back into my cell. He continues to drag me across the tiny room and lifts me, and the suit of armor I’m wearing into a narrow recess in the wall. Once inside, a small plate in the shoulder of my armor slides open and a robotic arm darts out and plugs itself into the wall.

  The entire suit immediately hums and heats.

  “What is this?” I stammer, desperately trying to move. I can’t. The only control I have over my body is the ability to talk and blink. “Why can’t I move?” I’m immediately rasping out breaths, shaking my head in panic, it’s all I can move. Pain stabs through my chest and lungs, and tears burn the corners of my eyes.

  “My nerve endings are overridden and yet you still seem to grate on them,” he rumbles, stepping back toward the door.

  “Whoa…wait. You can’t just leave me here like this. What if I need to use the bathroom?” Holy crap, how long have I been up here without having to use the bathroom? “Where are your bathrooms? And I’m hungry.” That’s it, I’ve completely lost what was left of my sanity.

  “We have no need for them. Our armor takes care of all our needs. Right now, you’re feeding and calibrating.”

  “What are you creatures?” I ask, stunned.

  “Oh, but here I thought you and Rune were close friends,” he chuckles. “Did he not tell you of us?”

  I roll my eyes. “When did you ever see us be close friends? What the hell—”

  “Girl, he raised an army, albeit a small and pathetic one, and attacked his own people. For you.” That’s a lie. Rune was ambushed by Pious’s men! The stupid small army was my father’s attempt at being…something he might remember as heroic.

  “For me? What? Are you kidding me right now?” I could barely contain my panic and anger. I feel it real and alive, crawling thick in my veins just under my skin, and the armor tremors violently with the intensity of it. “You know the only reason Rune did what he did was because your people attacked him, ripped off his faceplate, and left him there to die!”

  “Bold words, from a little…girl. One that says she knows nothing.”

  “And seriously, why the hell did you take me? There is nothing that is going to get Rune to come after me.” I don’t know much about what’s going on, but Rune’s last words to me are the only thing I have left to hope for. I’m up in space for fuck’s sake, there’s no way I would know how to get back to Earth myself.

  “You don’t understand the power our faceplates hold.”

  “You can see people’s emotional, mental, and physical states. You can sense when—”

  “In short, our kind would know things that you do not.”

  “What are you people? Where are you from?”

  “We’re the same as you, but our bodies run on an advanced technology with our cybernetic armor.”

  “So you’re human.” Rune said that, he told me he was just like me but I thought he was lying.

  “Yes, of course,” he says.

  “Where are you from? What happened?”

  “It’s all irrelevant to you. You’re here to help us repopulate. If you remain calm and acquiescent, no one will hurt you.”

  “Take off your mask,” I whisper.

  “Negative, that will not happen.”

  “Then how do you think this repopulation is going to happen?” I ask with a dark laugh.

  He steps forward and leans his head close to mine. “We have precise ways of reproduction here.” They never take off their armor, there are dangerous pathogens that can kill them. I don’t know what other precise ways they have for repopulation, but whatever they are, this is my body and there’s nothing that he’s going to do to it without my permission.

  “Yeah well, think again. Because if you come at me with some little mushroom-head metal dick I will rip it off and jam it into one of those little holes.”

  “You’re so violent, little one.”

  “You’ve seen nothing yet,” I warn.

  There’s a long intake of breath and then his iron fist is grabbing my hair and tearing me out of the machine I’m plugged into. There’s a horrible buzzing and clanging as he jerks me by the hair into the hallway and drags me through another doorway.

  The room he takes me into is dark and lined with glass walls that glow and clear upon his verbal shout. My scalp burns as he wrenches my face against the cool glass, and my eyes sting again with hot tears.

  I blink the tears back and wish I hadn’t.

  There are hundreds of women on the other side of the glass.

  Some are scrambling away in abject terror from the masked men guarding them; some crawl away, clawing their way on all fours along the floor. They look starved. Beaten. Defeated.

  My palms spread out against the window. Tears finally spill out and stream down my cheeks.

  The icy metal of Pious’s chest plate slides up behind me, sending shards of frost down my spine. “I will break you, have no question about that,” his silver lips whisper along the shell of my ear. “My men will breed with your women, and you will give me a child however way I see fit.”

  28

  Kate

  I’m locked in my cell again. The door hisses shut and there’s no sound in here save for the cacophony of being deep inside my own head.

  There are no lights, at least no lights that I know how to turn on. So I lay, stationary on my bunk, cool metal at my back, staring out at the one small blinking red light on the console opposite me. It blinks in a rhythm that I can’t understand, a pattern I can’t quite figure out. Hours pass, maybe even days, or weeks, I’m not sure. I never hunger or need to use the bathroom, the only human thing I can do is sleep, though it’s never restful. There’s always a thick cocooning feeling all around me, just under the line of suffocating.

  I play with all the buttons on the armor and mask, but I won’t dare put on the faceplate. I cradle the stupid thing in my arms until I can no longer keep my eyes open.

  I wake trembling with a bone-chilling cold when my cell door slides open. My legs and arms feel stiff and confined, and I feel like I’m slowly turning into some metal statue.

  One of the manliens comes inside and starts messing with the blinking red button.

  “Hello,” I say, my voice ragged from sleep.

  He continues his work without a sound.

  I clear my throat noisily. “Hey, cyborg,” I say louder, “are you not allowed to talk to me or something?”

  He stills and slowly turns his body to face me.

  I dangle my metal-clad legs off the bunk and swing them like a child. “I don’t have a mask on. I can’t read your name, what is it?”

  “Tore,” it answers.

  “You guys all have weird names,” I mumble to myself. “Anyway,” I say taking a deep breath, “So, what was your reason for coming to Earth?”

  “Reason?”

  “Yes. Reason. Why were you guys on Earth?”

  “The Caelum came to help save mankind.”

  “Oh yeah, whose mankind? Mine or yours?” I scoff.

  “It’s one and the same.”

  “How’s that?”

  His mask tilts to the side and he steps a touch c
loser to me.

  “You do understand my kind have no idea why this is happening, right?” I ask.

  “Your kind doesn’t need to know anything of what is happening.”

  “Your race is a bunch of assholes. Typical male assholes. I ask a question and you all think it’s time to play a game.”

  I think he might have grunted at this.

  “So where are you from?” I ask.

  “Caelum.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Right here.”

  “So you’re from this tin can?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay…how about originally? Where did your people originate from?”

  “Same place as yours did.”

  “Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “How the fuck is that?”

  He stared at me with those deep-set holes.

  “Hey, are you even looking at me. I can’t tell with all that headgear on. Take off your mask,” I say, hopping off the bunk to stand in front of him.

  “No.”

  “Fine. Then tell me about the Caelum. How are you guys from Earth?”

  “Project Caelum. Our forefathers left the Earth’s atmosphere in 2056.”

  “You’re lying. Do those faceplate things let you lie?” I can’t help laughing.

  He says nothing.

  Why is he not saying anything? How the hell could he be telling me the truth? “Hold up. Are you saying you’re from the future?” I’m really laughing now, nervous giddy laughter that sounds a little too high-pitched and frantic.

  “Please, forgive me. I must continue my maintenance,” he says, moving backward.

  “Sorry. Sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you. Just continue,” I say, reaching out and putting my hand against his arm.

  His head tilts down toward the place where my fingers touch him. “Tell me about Pious…” I say, urging him to tell me something—anything more.

  “Pious is the general.” His response is flat and steady but his head tilts down toward my hand touching him.