Tekgrrl

by A. J. Menden

  “Don’t go there,” I snarled. “That’s not the real reason you’re acting like you can tell me what to do. This is because of us.”

  He threw up his hands. “Excuse me for being concerned.”

  “I hate this,” I said, breaking. I crossed my arms over my chest. “I hate it that just because you’ve been in a guy’s bed, he thinks that gives him the right to order you around.”

  Paul shook his head. “Tell me you didn’t just say that to me.”

  “Oh, so I’m wrong? This has nothing to do with the fact that we’re sleeping together?”

  Paul rolled his eyes. “Don’t you dare take my concern for the woman I love and pervert it into some macho head trip! You should know damn well I’m not like that, Mindy.” He turned his back, obviously furious.

  But his words had taken the wind out of my sails. “W-what?” I said.

  “I said that you know damn well I’m not like that. At least you should. Jesus.” He ran a hand over his head.

  “No, before that.” I took a step toward him, hesitant. “It kinda sounded like you said…like you said you love me.” Maybe I had misunderstood his meaning.

  “Well, I guess that’s because I did. I do.” He turned around to look at me, and his features softened at the obvious shock on my face. “You hadn’t figured that out yet?”

  “Well, it’s just…y-you never said anything,” I stammered. I’d known I was falling for him, and I’d hoped that my feelings were reciprocated, but to hear the words…

  “Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but neither have you,” he said, leaning back against the closed door. He held up a hand as I opened my mouth. “And I don’t want you to feel like you have to now. I know this came on fast and under terrible circumstances. It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility that this is some sort of stress reaction to everything that’s going on with the team. I don’t think it is, but I didn’t want to pressure you too soon.” He sighed and continued before I could say anything. “I’m making a mess of this. Look, Mindy, I do trust you. I really do. I’m just very concerned, and I think I have a right to be, both as your team leader and as the guy who’s in love with you. I’m only asking you to do two things in consideration of that.”

  “And that is?”

  “First, you’ll wear a communicator in case you need to get in touch with our home base,” he said. “So if you’re in trouble, you can let us know. And…along similar lines, I want you to take Luke along.”

  I started to protest, but he held up a hand. “He doesn’t have to go into the meeting with you, just be in the same area. Wesley and I are going together to meet with Simon; you need someone with you to meet with his father. We haven’t been going anywhere alone so far as a team, and we’re not starting now. That’s an order from the team leader side of me. And since he offered to dump Selena for you and also judging from his reaction today, Luke still has feelings for you, so I know he’ll look out for you.”

  I sighed. He had a point. “Fine, okay. I’ll take Luke and a communicator. Happy?”

  Paul nodded, looking grave. “Happier.”

  “Was Luke the last thing or was there something else?”

  “There’s something else. This is from the personal side, not the team leader.” He took a deep breath. “Promise me that when everything gets back to normal, when there’s no more alien invasion and we’re back home where we belong and not outlaws, that you’ll consider making our relationship something real. Something permanent.” He looked really nervous. “I’m not asking for any sort of commitment now, and I’m not even asking for it when this is over. Only that you’ll give it some thought. That it’ll be in the back of your mind. On the radar. That kind of thing.” He sat down on my bed. “I’m not trying to scare you off, but I’m being honest, Mindy. This thing with Kate really screwed with my head. I’m too old to play games like that and I don’t want to ever do it again. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page, and since this started out so strange…” He sighed. “I just want to make sure we both know where we want this to go. Or we should get out of it now.”

  I looked over and felt something I had gotten used to feeling around him: I was happy. Despite the evil aliens knocking on our door, despite being an outlaw, despite the craziness surrounding us, I was happy. With him. Come what may, no matter what the future might hold.

  I sat down next to him and slipped my hand into his. “Okay,” I said.

  He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. “I know I sound crazy right now, but as long as we can talk about it after…”

  “No,” I shook my head. “You’re misunderstanding me. I don’t have to wait until the dust settles. I mean, I can if you really want, but I already know what my answer is going to be. It’s not going to change between now and then. It’s still going to be okay.” I squeezed his hand. “I love you, Paul. Depending on how you look at it, this relationship moved really fast or really slow, but it’s been real to me since the night we were together. Maybe even before then. And it’s stupid, but I was nervous that it wasn’t real for you until you said that you loved me too.”

  “The same,” he said, almost like he was in shock. “About everything you just said.”

  “So, you’re stuck with me,” I promised, squeezing his hand again.

  “Until you come to your senses.”

  “You’re in for a long haul, buddy. Now, what time do you have to meet with Simon?”

  He checked his watch. “We have to leave in about twenty minutes or so.”

  “Not a lot of time, but it’ll have to do.” I pushed him back on my bed and whipped off my sweater.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Do you see them yet?” I asked Luke, glancing around.

  We were the only two people standing in this secluded area of Megolopolis’s largest park, where people generally went jogging and picnicked with families in the mornings. At night, however, it became a different place, where drug deals went down and no one went walking for fear of muggings or worse. We’d patrolled in this area for years, and the police tried to keep up surveillance, but there was only so much they could do and we had been working from more limited resources lately. I was glad Paul had insisted Luke come with me; it was nearing dusk and, hero or no, even I didn’t want to be alone here. This was that strange in-between time, after the moms took their kids home and the businessmen finished their evening jogs and before the dangerous people showed up. I suppose it was the perfect place to have a clandestine meeting with a senator about the possible fate of the planet.

  “Not yet,” Luke said, keeping an eye out.

  “I hope the meeting with Simon is going okay for Paul and Wesley,” I remarked.

  “They’re probably telling him where to stick it right now,” Luke said. Then: “It’s none of my business, but there’s just something I’ve got to know.”

  “What’s your question? Who Simon’s sleeping with to keep his job?”

  “No. Are you in love with him?”

  “Simon?” I asked.

  He gave me a look. “You know who I mean. Is it just physical, or is it more?”

  I frowned. “That’s an awfully personal question.”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “I don’t ask you about your relationship with Selena.”

  “Because you know it’s not serious.”

  I wasn’t sure why he wanted to know what he asked, but I told him anyway. “Yes. I love Paul.”

  “It’s just so strange to hear you say that.” He shook his head. “But if you’re happy, then I’m happy for you, Mindy.”

  I smiled, thinking about it. “Given the vast weirdness of this whole situation, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that, yes, I am happy, Luke. Thanks. And I think this is them.” I nodded to the figures starting to approach. Considering they were in conservative suits and ties, I had a feeling they weren’t local drug dealers showing up early for work.

  “Mindy Clark?” The olde
st gentleman reached out with a hand. “Jackson Leasure.” A silent bodyguard stood in the background. Good to see I wasn’t the only one who brought backup.

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it. “Yes, I’m Tekgrrl. This is my teammate, Sensei. Luke Harmon.”

  “Luke.” The senator shook his hand. “I’m glad you decided to meet with me, young lady. I’d just like to apologize on behalf of the Senate and myself. I’m afraid my son led us to believe your team was starting to become a threat to national security, and that his team was better suited to be the premier team of this country.” He shook his head. “Now we find out how wrong he was.”

  “You said it, I didn’t, sir,” I said.

  “Those people linked with that Dragon cult were influencing him too,” Jackson defended his son. “They were trying to convince him that your friend’s baby was in danger so they could get close to her for their own reasons. Simon realizes that now.”

  I wondered if he did, or if that was just an excuse Simon was using, but I didn’t say anything.

  “These Kalybri showed up a week or so ago, telling us that a warrior race of raiders was on its way to our planet. They’ve been fighting a war with them for many years and thought they had them finally beaten back until they intercepted transmissions showing a countdown to the first strike on Earth, and they wanted to warn us and help.”

  I swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise in my throat. “Yes, their planet was subject to an invasion back when I was living with them. I was one of the prisoners taken. The Kalybri joined forces to save us, and to put a stop to the Vyqang. I believe they took down one of the Vyqang’s largest marauding ships, but apparently they didn’t take out the whole race.”

  “And now they’re here.”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir. Or coming.”

  “Well, if these Kalybri stopped them before and have been fighting them for a long time, I would say these are people we want on our side,” he mused.

  “Yes, sir. If it is actually them contacting us and not the Vyqang pretending to be them to lure us into a trap to lower our defenses…”

  “He suggested you would say as much.”

  “Sir?”

  “The emissary for the Kalybri, their leader. He said you would refuse to meet with them.”

  “And wisely too,” a familiar accented voice said. I whirled to see a shimmering glow surround the bodyguard as the image inducer he was using switched off.

  Luke bolted forward, putting his bulk between me and what had been the senator’s bodyguard.

  The newly revealed alien smiled. “Hello, Man-dei.”

  I gasped. “Oh my God!” I maneuvered past Luke. “Dyvinsher! Is it really you?” I hugged my former foster brother.

  He smiled. “Yes, it is me, Man-dei. You have grown up.”

  “So have you!” I hugged him again. “You look great. What about Anyoska? How is she?”

  The Kalybri’s face darkened. “She was never the same after we got her back. She doesn’t go outside of the house, just sits in a chair in front of her reader. She thinks she is still in school.” His face cracked with sorrow.

  “Oh, Dyvinsher!” I felt tears rush down my cheeks.

  “Our people left Earth alone to continue our fight with the Vyqang, yes, but also because we were afraid of what would become of you. Your people entrusted us with you, and we failed that trust. We did not want to be a constant reminder…”

  “Dyvinsher, that wasn’t the Kalybri’s fault!” I protested.

  “We tried to help in any way we could, but we thought you would end up like Anyoska. But you are strong, Man-dei. You are strong.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that.”

  “Yes.” He nodded emphatically. “You are a warrior, like me.”

  I recognized the symbols on his robe. “You’re a commander now!”

  “Yes, I am leading the expedition to help this planet. Once I heard they were making their way to this region, I knew he was coming for you.” He made a sound like a sigh. “I knew it was only a matter of time.”

  “He? Who is ‘he’?”

  “The current leader of the Vyqang.” Dyvinsher’s face looked pale. “Your son.”

  “W-what?” I felt like the bottom had dropped out of my world. My head swam. “What are you talking about?” I didn’t want to hear this, but I especially didn’t want to hear it front of Luke, and Simon’s father.

  Dyvinsher reached out a hand to steady me. I didn’t even realize I was swaying. “When they took you and Anyoska, they took you for breeding stock. They harvested from you.”

  “Oh God.” I whispered, remembering what I had seen during that hazy point in time during my capture, when I had watched them take apart my brain and tinker with it…to steal my DNA to make the perfect soldier. A soldier who was now coming this way to do to my planet what they had once done to the Kalybri.

  “That’s why he’s been able to talk to me and only me,” I said. “The telepathic bond only works between us because we’re linked by DNA.” I don’t know how I knew that, only that I did. Perhaps because he knew.

  “We have been fighting them in deep space, Man-dei,” Dyvinsher explained. “We have learned much about their tactics, though they are still strong. We will work with your people to try to defend your planet. Hopefully they will not even make it to orbit. But if they do, and they send out a landing party…”

  I nodded. “We have to be ready. I understand. But he’s been contacting me, warning me that they’re coming. Why?”

  “I think he wants you to know who he is. I think he wants to see you.”

  “Does he think I won’t try to stop him because…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. He wasn’t my child. Not really. He was a scientific by-product of experiments done in a lab, grown in a tube by creatures who had violated me. His birth wasn’t brought on by the usual style of rape, but it had been rape nonetheless. “Because of what he is?”

  “The Vyqang have no care for the females that spawn them,” Dyvinsher said. “Had we not taken back you and Anyoska, you would have been disposed of without a thought.”

  “So, why?”

  “I think he is curious. He is part human, and human curiosity is great. Your race is technologically backward, but you managed to interact with us—and with the Vyqang.”

  “Well, as we say on Earth, curiosity killed the cat.”

  “In this case, I hope so. And that cat is a Vyqang.” Dyvinsher studied me. “We will stop them, Man-dei. Are you a strong enough warrior to face them?”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I vowed, feeling the weight of those words. “We all will.”

  But…could I help kill a thing that had grown from a part of me?

  I thought of all of my friends in the EHJ, of tiny little Emily who was going to—I had to believe—grow up to save the world from certain destruction. I thought of my parents. And mostly I thought of Paul and the future we could have together.

  Yes, if it came down to it, I would choose to save all of them. I could be just as cold as the Vyqang.

  “Come back with us, Dyvinsher,” I heard myself saying. “My team leaders will want to make a plan with you.”

  The senator looked startled. “We were going to have talks with them as well.”

  “He said he wanted to help my people,” I said. “The last I checked, we aren’t welcome with yours.”

  “Th-that was a mistake,” Simon’s father stuttered. “My son was bitter about his rejection from your team; I know that now. We made a mistake.”

  “Don’t worry, Senator,” I said. “We’ll save the world as per usual. But we’ll take any help that is genuinely offered—unlike others, who are glory hounds and poor sports.” I turned back to Luke and my foster brother. “Let’s go.”

  Hours later, we were back home. Our real home, not Fantazia’s pocket dimension. It seemed as if several months had passed since we left, even though it had only been weeks. I wandered the halls
of the Elite Hands of Justice, thinking. Simon had graciously offered to drop all false charges. He had also been gracious enough to offer us a place on the American Agents team. Paul and Wesley had graciously told him to go to hell. But we were no longer outlaws. We were back home. Just in time to prep for the battle against my evil offspring.

  We’d gone over the plan several times, and each time, part of my mind had paid rapt attention. The other part was numb, cut off, distant.

  Since the leader of the Vyqang wanted to meet me so much, he was going to. I was going to be the distraction, the bait to draw him out. I would give him the chance to leave. If he didn’t, everyone was waiting to destroy him. My foster brother’s people would fight his minions in space. The Elite Hands of Justice would fight any that came Earthside. The military had nuclear weapons they were willing to bring to bear. I hoped it wouldn’t come to any of that, but I remembered the only way the Vyqang were stopped before was destruction.

  I surveyed a different destruction: my lab, totally incinerated when we had our fight with Simon. As I sorted through the debris, making piles of trash and of other things I could probably repair, I sighed. Dyvinsher, whose own ships were in orbit around the Earth as our first line of defense, had estimated that the Vyqang would arrive any day. It didn’t matter. It could be one day or one month from now; I was still ill equipped to deal with this painful reminder of my past who wanted to enslave my planet.

  I heard the sound of a door swishing open behind me and turned to see Paul. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hey.” I motioned to the pile. “Just sorting some stuff out.”

  “I can see that.” He stood with his hands in his pockets. “Feels weird to be back here, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He looked over my pile. “Anything salvageable?”

  “A few pieces here and there.” I felt like we were having this conversation on multiple layers. “What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to check on you. You were really quiet all through the meeting.”

  “There’s just a lot to process.”

  “I understand.”