Tekgrrl

by A. J. Menden

  Fantazia straightened and looked at Lainey. “Yes, I see it. It would normally take quite a number of magic users to circumvent such strange, otherworldly work.”

  “But?” Lainey prompted.

  “I can do it if the techno mage will help,” she said. When she motioned for one of her henchmen, he stepped forward and she directed: “Go find the Virus.” With a slight nod, he disappeared into the other room.

  “So, what’s this going to cost?” Lainey asked.

  Fantazia took her seat across from us again. She tapped one black-polished nail upon her red lips. “Something fairly simple for you, Mrs. Charles. I want to be able to spend some time with your child.”

  Lainey’s lips thinned to a straight line. “Why would you want that?”

  Fantazia’s hand fluttered to her breast. “A better question is why wouldn’t I? It’s not every day one gets to be in the presence of a person who will decide the fate of the world.”

  We all knew about the prophecy that said Emily would either bring about the apocalypse or save the world from it, but it had never sounded more serious than when this ancient magic user said it. A shiver ran down my spine. Lainey seemed taken aback.

  “And besides,” Fantazia continued. “She is my half sister.”

  Kate and I both turned to gape at Lainey. The Reincarnist was this strange woman’s father?

  Lainey ignored us, keeping her eyes fixed on Fantazia. After a moment of silence, she said, “If your father doesn’t care, fine.”

  Kate and I exchanged glances. What other surprises were we going to be hit with?

  The bodyguard Fantazia had sent into the other room reappeared, escorting a stocky bald man whose arms were covered in binary language tattoos. “Cyrus the Virus,” the bodyguard said, and then resumed his position next to Fantazia’s couch. I thought I vaguely remembered seeing the bald guy in our criminal files.

  “Cyrus. Good to see you’re lurking about, abusing my hospitality,” Fantazia said.

  “Whatever this is, it had better be good,” the newcomer replied, seemingly unimpressed and uncowed. “I had a great hand in the poker game you just interrupted and I’ve got rent to pay.” Seeing Lainey sitting there, he grimaced. “What’s the Old One’s wife want?”

  “It’s time for you to return my favor,” Fantazia said. She gestured to me. “You’ll like the job.”

  Cyrus the Virus was a techno mage and a classic villain—one who had used his powers to steal money so he didn’t have to hold a conventional job. And like every other villain who got into the game out of laziness, he was eventually caught by another team and sent to jail. He had already paid off his debt to society and had supposedly gone legit—if playing poker for your rent is legit.

  Cyrus looked me up and down like I was a treat. “Very nice. If the job involves me, her, and a can of whipped cream, I think I love you, Fantazia.”

  An involuntary gasp escaped me, and I fought revulsion.

  Fantazia gave him an exasperated look. “No, idiot. She’s had memory blocks erected using alien technology. We’re going to break them down.”

  “Really?” The Virus looked interested. “Wicked cool.”

  “Have a look around,” Fantazia said, with a wave of her hand at me.

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Cyrus approached. I gave Lainey a hesitant glance. After a moment’s consideration, she nodded. Glumly, I leaned forward to accept my fate.

  Cyrus the Virus copied Fantazia’s earlier movement, cupping hands around my head but not touching. Looking directly into my eyes, he spoke softly: “I open my mind to the technological world. I speak its language; I see its pattern.” His eyes glowed with a strange green light. Nothing else seemed to happen, and then I felt a buzzing in the back of my mind, only louder.

  “Oh, yeah, I see it,” he said. “Wow. That’s some handiwork.” He peered into my eyes, but not at them, looking almost through me. I twitched uncomfortably in my seat.

  “Excellent,” Fantazia said, getting up. “Ladies, I need you to move so that she can lie down, and I need one of you at her feet and one at her arms. We’ll probably need you to hold her in place.”

  At that bit of good news, my heart started pounding furiously, but I did as I was told, palms sweating, head pounding and already feeling more than a bit nauseated.

  Fantazia and Cyrus took their places on either side of my head.

  “I won’t lie,” Fantazia remarked. “This is going to hurt like hell. And I can’t guarantee what you’ll be like when we’re done. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  You’ll go insane from what they did to you, my mother had warned. I wanted to scream no, that I could just wait until the blocks broke down naturally or something else happened, but I knew in my heart that I had to go through with this.

  As I couldn’t find my voice, I nodded my acceptance.

  Fantazia patted my head like a small child, which I guess to her I was. “It’ll all be over soon, one way or the other…” She looked up at Cyrus. “Ready?”

  He nodded, eyes glistening. “Oh, hell yeah.”

  Fantazia grinned. “Let’s do this. E’ ora di abbatterie i muri.”

  Both of their hands plunged to my temples and forehead.

  I started screaming.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I sat at my desk in the formal classroom, chairs lined up in a row facing the teacher. I particularly stood out, looking like a ghost in my improperly fitting white linen, wide-sleeved unisex shirt and pants, the requisite uniform of every student.

  I wanted to make a good impression for all of humankind, so I sat quietly at my desk, spine ramrod straight, glancing at the holo-pad in front of me, mentally changing the swooping curls and symbols of Kalybrian script into English numbers and letters.

  It was a lovely, inviting spring day outside, and I had the misfortune to be seated next to an open window. With every breeze, spicy and exotic scents wafted in, practically begging me to go romp in the lovely weather, perhaps play with my foster brother and sister a game of drakenball, a sport somewhat like football and baseball combined that all the young teens my age played. Or perhaps I could spend the afternoon with my foster mother making likchen, an ice-cream-like delicacy of Kalybri.

  Despite the fact that I was on an alien planet, my life here was the most normal it had ever been. I had brothers and sisters, I went to school and did homework before helping my mother prepare dinner, and was currently learning from my father how Kalybrian transportation vehicles worked. I was happy.

  “Man-dei, do you know the answer?” As always, the teacher spoke in Kalybrian, and my name sounded foreign with her strange accent, but my mind translated.

  “That was in stardate twenty-three, one-eighty-nine, madam,” I responded.

  She nodded. “Thank you, Man-dei.”

  The wind blew harder now, like a storm was coming. Sure enough, as I glanced outside, the formerly bright day had darkened, like a group of clouds had suddenly appeared. Strange, but I didn’t think anything of it until a few seconds later when harsh sirens sounded. Everyone looked up, concerned.

  Our teacher looked the most worried. “Probably just a drill, children,” she said, but her voice quavered. “Let’s conduct ourselves in an orderly fashion. You need to return to your domiciles immediately. Do not go anywhere else. Curfew has been instituted for everyone.”

  We had never been told to return home before in our drills, or had a curfew, and I noticed the ripple of excitement and worry in the student body. This was out of the ordinary and strange, but like all children, we were thrilled to be getting out early.

  As I followed the other students out into the hall, I heard my name being called, and turned. Anyoska, my foster sister, came up to me.

  “I wonder what’s going on,” she said.

  “So, this isn’t usual?” I asked, even though I knew it wasn’t.

  “Maybe father will know,” Anyoska mused. “My teacher said they called curfew for the whole village.”
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br />   “Sounds serious.”

  Anyoska nodded. “Maybe there’s a bad storm coming.”

  As soon as we stepped outside, we knew why it was dark. There was a giant black spaceship hanging in the sky overhead.

  “Maker save us,” Anyoska breathed.

  “What the hell is that?” I said.

  “Come on!” She grabbed my hand, knocking my data pads out of my grasp and yanking me toward her home.

  “Wait, my schoolwork!”

  “Leave it!” she hissed, dragging me along.

  “Anyoska, what’s going on?”

  “We’re being invaded.”

  We ran.

  “Anyoska, Man-dei! Thank the Maker,” said my foster brother, Dyvinsher, appearing out of nowhere. He was headed back the way we had come, and it was unsettling to see him carrying a weapon. The Kalybri never carried weapons; this was only the second time I had ever seen one in a whole year on their planet. “You’ve got to get inside.”

  “Who is it, Dyvinsher?” Anyoska asked.

  His expression was grim. “It’s the Vyqang.” My foster sister’s face drained of color, and I knew this was a bad thing.

  And that’s when the screaming began.

  Men of varying colors and shapes suddenly rounded the corner of the town square behind us, dressed in ragged leather, torn flight suits and loaded up with a variety of weapons. I watched in horror as one rammed a sword through a townsperson, while another set a building ablaze with his flamethrower.

  “Go!” Dyvinsher screamed, turning to face the invaders, unleashing a spray of bullets from his weapon. Anyoska’s fingers bit into my arm as she pulled me away and toward her house.

  We skidded to a stop near the front door. A body was lying across the front lawn, in pieces.

  “Father!” Anyoska screamed, and I felt bile rise in my throat. This intelligent and kind man had met a terrible end.

  A strange man-creature covered in scales and with dirty dreadlocked hair and what looked like horns coming out of his face, but on second glance turned out to be bones actually piercing his skin, stepped out of the house and caught sight of us. He raised his heavy gun and pointed it.

  “Run!” I screamed to my foster sister, and we both took off. I heard a strange blasting noise from behind, and a second later the sound of a body hitting the ground. Anyoska! Then came another noise, and a sizzling pain hit me in the back. My body and mind went numb.

  When I came to, I was lying on a cold metal floor that was also itchy. Forcing my eyes open, I noticed it was because someone had halfheartedly tossed straw down, I guess to make up for the lack of a bed. There was the sound of crying, and I looked up to see I was in a small cage barely high enough to sit up in, let alone stand.

  “Man-dei?” A small form crawled toward me, and I noticed it was my foster sister.

  “Anyoska!” I embraced her. “I thought that creature killed you.”

  She shook her head, and I noticed her eyes were glassy and dull. “The Vyqang do not kill females.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  I looked around, seeing other small cages surrounding us, with weeping figures inside. Some of them housed familiar Kalybrian faces; other prisoners were strange alien species I had never seen. All of them were female. All looked scared out of their minds.

  “Anyoska, where are we?” I asked.

  “Aboard a Vyqang hunting ship,” she said.

  “Hunting? What are they hunting?”

  “Us.”

  I shook in terror. “What do you mean, us? What’s going to happen, Anyoska?” I clung to my sister in fear.

  “The Vyqang are plunderers, warriors-males. No one knows their planet of origin. They travel the galaxies, raiding whatever planets they like, taking their crops, fine metals and technology for their own use.” She met my eyes. “And their females.”

  Her unspoken meaning settled in. “No.”

  “There are no female Vyqang. They have no way to reproduce.” She swallowed harshly. “For that reason, they round up the women of the planets they raid. Some become slaves or bed warmers to the Vyqang or are sold to other brutal species. The rest…” She broke off in tears. “The rest they turn into breeders.”

  I felt tears run down my face. “Stop.”

  “But first they…tinker with them,” Anyoska continued, as if she had to speak the whole horrible truth. “They’re not only brutal, they’re smart. They study each female’s genetics, the gifts of her species, and they modify her to suit their needs. They seek to produce the perfect warrior. Many females do not survive the process. The ones that do…well, the Vyqang take the needed reproductive matter and grow their new children in special incubation tubes. Then they either destroy the female or send her off to the slavers.” Anyoska shuddered. “I don’t know which is worse.”

  As I stared at her in horror, the sound of a door opening could be heard, and the imprisoned females all around us starting shrieking. Someone slammed a metal club against one of the cages, clearly in warning.

  A pale being, almost ghostly white except with a vaguely feline look to the eyes and nose, bent in front of our cage and opened its door. He reached in with one clawed hand and grabbed Anyoska, ripping her from my grasp. I screamed and clawed after her, only to be dragged out myself and made to stand. Another creature, this one green-furred, walked down a quickly assembling line of released women, inspecting them like cattle, grabbing and pawing but with a vaguely detached, mechanical air. When he was finished, he pointed to one side of the room or the other, clearly separating them for slaving or breeding, though I couldn’t tell which.

  Anyoska didn’t make a sound, her eyes dead as he checked her over and then pointed for her to be dragged off to the right.

  Then it was my turn. The green-furred creature grabbed me by the hair and inspected my tear-filled eyes, then squeezed my jaw open to inspect my teeth. It pulled my shirt up to expose my barely developed breasts, squeezed one. I stiffened. Frowning, it reached between my legs to cup my genitals. I whimpered. It turned and said something in a harsh language to its companion, who replied, then turned back to me.

  “What are you?” it asked in broken Kalybrian. “Not Kalybri.”

  I shook my head.

  “What are you?” it repeated, harsher.

  “Human,” I said, voice barely above a whisper.

  The alien spoke in rushed tones to its companion, and the other handed over a small mechanical device from which a blue light radiated, and the first Vyqang pointed the light at me, running it up and down my body. The device beeped, and the alien looked down at the results. With a grunt, it pointed to the right. The other alien ushered me forward, where I clung to my foster sister and wept.

  The women on the left side of the room were tossed back into their cages. The women on the right side were led out into a hallway where gunmetal grey walls gave way to a series of doors. One woman was pulled from the group and taken into the first room. We all stiffened as we heard screaming, and then the alien returned alone, slamming the door behind him. It was like that at each door, my sense of dread building with each shriek of a vanished female.

  At the next door, the white alien reached out and grabbed Anyoska. I held tight to her, trying to pull her back, but the alien frowned at me and brought the butt of his gun down on my hand. I screamed in pain and fear, but released her, and my sister was led into a room to disappear. No scream emerged.

  I was dragged into the following room. It held nothing but a bunch of machines and a long flat steel table with all sorts of horrible-looking technology surrounding it, needles and knives and the like. I suddenly knew what we had been chosen for.

  I fought for all I was worth, screaming, biting and kicking as the alien dragged me over to the table. I felt a sharp pain in my neck and then the world slid into blackness.

  I couldn’t figure out where that strange humming noise was coming from.

  I blinked in the blinding light coming from above. How had I e
ven fallen asleep with such a bright light right over my eyes? And what was that obnoxious humming? I tried to move my head so I could pinpoint from what direction it emitted, but found that I couldn’t; I was being held still by something cold. Metal, perhaps. I tried to reach a hand to brush away whatever it was, but discovered my arms felt heavy, weighted down by something, almost like they had been numbed through anesthesia. I was aware my arms existed, but they weren’t responding. A quick check determined my legs were suffering a similar fate.

  Panic rose up in me, made all the worse by the blinding light and the fact that I couldn’t escape it. I concentrated, that unnerving humming threatening to break my focus, and tried to move something, anything. A soft groan burned deep in my throat, and I felt pain somewhere. The more aware I became, the more my body was registering that something wasn’t right, and pain rocketed through me like lightning. I moaned and tried to writhe, to get away from the discomfort, but in my state I couldn’t get far.

  A hydraulic hiss permeated the air and I heard heavy footsteps, followed by heavy male voices speaking harsh and guttural. The Vyqang. Instantly, I remembered where I was and why. They were doing something to me—specifically to my head—to make me better breeding stock.

  The Vyqang moved toward my bed, the white one and the green one from earlier, this time joined by one whose skin was covered in dark, almost obsidian scales. I tried to scream but my throat caught.

  The obsidian Vyqang leaned over me and spoke in Kalybrian. “Do not be afraid, little girl. It is all a bad dream.” And then there was nothing but pain and terror and cold metal biting into my flesh.

  It was like I was having an out-of-body experience, dimly floating above my body but not one hundred percent certain of what they were doing to me as they took my brain and my DNA apart and put it back together. At some point, I realized that there were explosions sounding far away, that my captors seemed worried, and then suddenly there were golden-skinned aliens all around, speaking in soft Kalybrian: “Don’t worry, child. You are safe.”

  But once I became aware of my body again, the only thing that greeted me was agony and mind-numbing terror—and awareness of how I had been violated. I screamed until I didn’t have any voice left, distrustful of even these quiet, reassuring golden-skinned creatures who perhaps had rescued me. Even when they brought to me a familiar-looking woman with blue eyes and dark hair so like mine, and a man with glasses and kind eyes, I still screamed and cried and lashed out at anyone that came near, seeing only monsters come to hurt me again. The woman and the man cried and begged the golden ones to do something.