The Prey

by Jenny Foster

  Johar wraps his arms around me so tight that I can’t breathe. It feels like he wants to stop me from running away. “I had no idea what your father’s plans were.” Little by little, he shares more. “I did not know that I would infect you.”

  Then, after another round of silence: “I saw you back then, in the lab.” The shock makes me go completely stiff. Now I know why he is holding me so tight, because I am flailing madly, trying to get a good look at him.

  “You know me? Why didn’t you say anything?” He lets me go after a few seconds. I am hot. Way too hot. Sweat is running down my whole body. I was right. It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. A thousand thoughts race through my head, but can’t gain traction anywhere. I try to figure out when this happened, while I am waiting for Johar’s answer, but I can’t figure it out. I finally free myself from his grip with a jerk, but only because he lets me. I turn around, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I realize that I am not the only one who withheld something.

  “You owe me an explanation,” I say and feel immense relief. Johar and I are even – we have both made a bad decision. The question is; does he regret his mistake? Honestly, he doesn’t look like he does. And he still hasn’t answered my question.

  “It’s complicated,” he begins and with that I lose my patience.

  “You are a bastard,” I throw in his face. “You make me feel bad for erasing your memories – but you are keeping something from me that is important.”

  He looks at me with his gray-green eyes, almost triumphantly. “And why is it so important to you?”

  “Because …,” I fall silent. “Because I have feelings for you, and don’t know why.”

  “Do you need a rational reason for your feelings?” he raises his perfectly formed eyebrows, quite plainly showing me the contradiction that is plaguing me. “Or is it because you have feelings for a machine human, and that this does not fit into your small, narrow world view?”

  “Idiot,” I snarl half-heartedly. He has hit his mark, as usual. I raise my hands to my throbbing head. It is just too much. I get dizzy and I sway back and forth on the bed. Please, I plead in my thoughts, not another attack like earlier! That is the last thing I need.

  Johar does not ask me if everything is okay, but pulls me back into his arms, instead. I want to let it happen, but I can’t any more. I need to put a little distance between me and the man who has turned my world upside down – and who is denying giving me answers.

  I stand up and look at him, before I go back to my room. “Thank you for everything you have done for me,” I say and brush my hand over my face, where the blue lines are shimmering through the skin-colored cream. “But if you think that you can just keep going like this – good for you. I, however, cannot.” I pause and wait for an answer, for anything that will give me a reason to stay, but he says nothing. “I really thought we could start over,” I say with a small voice. He opens his mouth, but again, I wait in vain for and explanation. “So, we will fly to Earth now, catch Cassie Burnett, deliver her to my father, and that will be it?”

  Johar nods. “Sleep well.”

  I resist the urge to slam the door behind me, even though I am itching to do so.

  Chapter 8

  I spend the days until our arrival on Earth developing a prosthesis for Shazuul.

  The Sethari is the only one, who does not accept my self-imposed isolation. I hide in my room, because the blue lines are spreading further and further over my whole body, and because the side-effects of the virus are getting stronger. The kitchen boy drops a tray off in front of my door three times a day, and he is the next one in whose head I land. His knocking wakes me up, after a short and restless sleep, and before I know what is happening, I am seeing the world through his eyes. It is like an irresistible pull, throwing me into him for less than a blink of an eye. Fear of the scientist’s daughter, curiosity about why I am keeping my distance from everyone else, but also a perverse satisfaction at disturbing me in my seclusion – all of these rush over me. And then I am myself, shivering and wondering if I will ever be able to be among humans again. From that moment on, I make sure that I am awake when the time to eat approaches.

  While everyone else keeps their distance from me, Shazuul remains stubborn. He comes over again and again, knocks on my door and tells me in his choppy way what the crew is up to, and what Hazathel and Johar are doing to keep busy (they are spending most of their time in the training room thrashing at each other – no wonder Shazuul would rather be with me.) It is strange, but I find his company to be pleasant. Maybe it is because the two of us are now outcasts. He with his stump of a sucking snout and I with the virus in my body, and everything that it brings with it. We communicate using hands and feet, and the few bits he knows of my language. When we are talking, I can almost forget that he is a Sethari and feeds on energy. Do I pour my heart out to him, because of his limited knowledge of my language?

  At some point, I ask him how he is able to get nutrition, and he shrugs. “Left overs,” he says with his squeaky voice. I look at him questioningly. “Depot,” he clarifies and pats his stomach. I understand: Sethari are able to store the energy they suck in for a certain time. “How long …,” I ask and his little eyes narrow. He raises his hands in question. “One month, two,” he answers, and I gulp.

  “I am sorry,” I blurt out, but at that moment I have an idea. I am a certified surgeon, just like everyone else on my father’s team, and I have performed amputations in the past. Why couldn’t I create a body part, instead, to switch things up? I can’t stop thinking about it, and the next day, I ask him if I could examine the rest of his sucking snout. I try to explain my plan to him, without giving him too much hope, because there is a real possibility that I will fail. His gratitude and trust, both of which I haven’t earned, are reason enough to make me want to try.

  I have no idea if Shazuul will reject the new organ. It is one of the risks, and I try to explain everything to him in detail. “I don’t even know if it will work,” I tell him and try to find the right words. “You could die, or your body might attack the new organ. Do you understand me?” He looks at me questioningly, and so I try to explain it a different way. At some point, he loses patience and grabs my hand. He puts it on his forehead, and after a short, instinctual moment of disgust over his rubber skin, I give in. Then … he somehow opens his mind and asks me to come in. I don’t know how to explain it. I feel the pull, but it feels more controlled and slower. And when I am in his head, it is different, too. He knows that I am there, and is trying hard to relax. His thoughts are foreign, but not nearly as frightening as the thoughts of a human who has no idea that I am there. Maybe this is because Shazuul is censoring his thoughts and only letting me see certain things that won’t scare me. The strongest feeling is his hope. He wants to live, and wants to be healthy and free again. If it were up to him, he would not want to see any members of his race again. I start to panic when I realize that I have no idea how to get back out of his head. He gives me a gentle push – at least, that is how it feels – and I am back inside my body, in my head.

  Shazuul seems to be excited, because he repeats two words over and over: “Cassie” and “practice.” This time, I recover more quickly from having been somewhere else, and ask him what he means. “Are you trying to tell me that I should practice this …” I flail my arms, because I have no words for these scary abilities, “stuff? With you? With Cassie? But Cassie isn’t here. She is on Earth.”

  “Practice,” he repeats and puts my hand, which I turn over to him willingly, back on his forehead. I have to turn away, because I am more than touched. He is a Sethari, and other than Johar, he is the only one who has shown me any kindness. I double my efforts and work through every night, so the surgery will be a success.

  We still have fifteen days until our arrival on Earth. I need to figure this out before then. I decide to take advantage of the nighttime and sneak into the unused and unguarded sick bay. I prepare the operation, look in the transpl
ant boxes, which are stored on board, for something that I could use, and experiment feverishly with human skin and a layer of fat that will give the whole thing its shape. Finally, I build a structure that has nerves in it and is sufficiently stable. Four days before our arrival on Earth, I run a test to see how the anesthetic will affect Shazuul’s body. Surprisingly, the anesthetic works the same as it would on a human of the same weight and age, and this gives me new food for thought. Humans, cyborgs, Sethari – maybe they resemble each other more than I have always been led to believe.

  While Shazuul is lying on my bed, anesthetized, I wonder feverishly if I should let Johar in on my plan. Do I need someone to assist me during the operation? Better safe than sorry, so I knock on his door. He opens it and raises his eyebrows in question when he sees the gently snoring Sethari. I wait for him to ask me what I have gotten myself into this time, and brace myself for his probing questions. Once again, Johar proves that he is completely unpredictable.

  “You really want to give him a new sucking snout?”

  “How do you know that? Who told you? Is it impossible to hide anything from you?”

  He raises his hands in a gesture that probably means “peace,” as my questions hit him. He grins, and my heart jumps. How long has it been since I have seen him smile? Too long, much too long. I would operate on Shazuul a hundred times, what the heck – a thousand times, just to see that smile again.

  “He told me himself,” my cyborg says. Something that looks suspiciously like appreciation is shimmering in his eyes, and I grow dizzy. This time, it isn’t nausea making the world spin, but pure happiness. At the same time, I hate myself for allowing his appreciation to make me so insanely happy. Not because he is a cyborg, but because he is a man, and I have always thought of myself as an independent woman. “I assume you need my help with the transplant?”

  “That would be nice,” I admit. “You would need to assist me, hand me swabs, needle and thread – things like that. Do you know your way around an operating room?” I want to bite my tongue off, because of course he knows his way around an operating room. He has been on the operating table often enough, himself, and since one assumes that cyborgs cannot feel pain, probably without any narcotics.

  “It’s okay,” Johar says when he sees my horror. “Of course, I will help you. When do we start?”

  “Tomorrow,” I reply and am surprised how easy that was. We look in each other’s eyes silently for a minute, and my cyborg is the first to say something.

  “There are a few things that I cannot explain to you, even if I would like to. Not because I don’t trust you, but … it isn’t my decision alone.” He cuts my questions off, by continuing on quickly. “I have actually told you too much already. Can you be patient, long enough until we find Cassie Burnett?”

  I hesitate; much too long, obviously, because his eyes darken. He raises his hand, as if to reach for me, but I evade his touch.

  “It comes down to whether I trust you or not,” I say. He must have read the answer on my face, because lowers his hand and smiles.

  “Trust me, Mara,” he says and, with those words, he leaves me and the snoring Shazuul behind.

  Chapter 9

  24 hours later, Shazuul is lying on my bed once more.

  A thick bandage covers his face. His eyes are closed, and he is as pale as the clean white sheet we threw on the bed earlier. Johar and I did it. It was not easy, but the Sethari has a new sucking snout. It will probably be a few weeks before he can use it, but I am confident that it is fully functional. An absurd pride fills me, when you consider what kind of nourishment a Sethari takes in. Before I anesthetized him, I threatened to cut his snout off all over again if he ever thought of using me as a food source. I will never forget the mischievous grin on Shazuul’s face as long as I live.

  Johar and I are tired. Not only did we operate on the Sethari and smuggle him into my room in secret, but we also cleaned up thoroughly. I will not hide what I have done, but I don’t need to rub it under anyone’s nose, either. When I want to take off my blood-splattered clothing and take a shower, I realize that my own bed is taken now. With an inviting gesture, Johar points to his own quarters.

  “We can leave the door open, so we can hear when he is waking up,” he suggests. I hesitate, but Johar just pulls me to him, and holds me tight. “Come,” he says simply, and at this moment, I realize that I have gained more than just a little good karma from the surgery. Johar is almost completely changed towards me, as if my actions have surprised him and pleased him all at once. The cyborg and I have a chance, after all.

  We stumble into the bathroom, exhausted, but also suddenly filled with burning lust. The adrenaline that is still flowing through me makes me impatient, and Johar feels the same way. We rip the clothes off of each other. He turns on the shower, and I scream when he pulls me under the ice cold water. He grabs me by the ass, picks me up and pushes me up against the wall. The water feels like needles on my skin, and my nipples are so hard that I think they might scratch Johar’s skin. He penetrates me with one thrust, and I feel like an impaled butterfly. I know that I will not be able to come in this position, but I don’t care. It is enough to feel Johar inside me, to see the lust on his face, and to incite him. He can feel my eagerness, and pours his semen out into me after only a couple of thrusts. But instead of taking a break, he picks me up. He covers me with kisses while he is carrying me to his bed, each more passionate than the last. How can he be so wild and tender all at once?

  He lays me down on his bed gently, spreads my legs and lowers his head. He licks me with fast, hard strokes of his tongue, until I reach my climax just as quickly and unexpectedly as he did. In the meantime, Johar is ready again, judging by his hard cock, and we go for round three. He covers my mouth during the third and final climax, because I lose all control over myself and the sounds coming out of my mouth.

  When we finally fall asleep in each other’s arms, my hand brushes over the metal plates on his body. They don’t make me flinch anymore, like they would have a few days ago. Instead, they just make me happy.

  Chapter 10

  Shazuul recovers surprisingly quickly, and as we near Earth, I change the bandage for the first time, so I can see my handiwork.

  The wound has healed very well, and the patient is pain-free. Shazuul has spent the last three days in my room. Nobody has dared to question the scientist’s daughter, and I take advantage of the fear that my father’s name awakens. For there is one thing I have learned: all of them, from the kitchen boy and the officers to the guards, they all fear Dr. Ruthiel and therefore, also me. The realization is not pleasant, and I wonder how I could have been so blind. Did I not want to notice that conversations stopped every time I came into a room? Or how people flinched from my touch, as if I would bring them the plague, death and ruin? Even my cyborg awakens less unpleasant feelings in them than I do.

  The day before we reach Earth’s orbit, we gather one more time for a conference. Hazathel, Shazuul, Johar and I. When I look at the four of us, I am well aware that we are freaks. Since I gave the Sethari a new sucking snout, the atmosphere among us has changed dramatically. Hazathel was always polite to me, but when he sees me for the first time since Shazuul’s surgery, something astonishing happens. He picks me up, spins me around through the air like a little child, and gives me a big kiss on my forehead. Even the sounds coming from his poisonous scorpion sound friendly. Before I can recover my dignity after this unexpected attack (I think I hollered and giggled), he puts me down and whispers only these words: “Thank you.” I nod at him, with a lump in my throat, and tell everyone that we should get down to business. “After all, we have a lot to discuss.”

  At first, we discuss together, if we should bring Shazuul down to Earth with us. As a doctor, I am strictly against it, but am overruled by the other three. “Then I will have to bring my doctor’s kit, for sure, and one of you will have to carry it,” I insist. We grin amicably, before things turn serious. Johar tell us exa
ctly where the pirate captain dropped Cassie off, and suggests that we land very near there.

  “We should skip the official registration this time,” he recommends.

  I frown. “But why? We have nothing to hide. We are on official business. You have permission to set foot on Earth, and so do we.” One look at their faces tells me everything. “Johar, you didn’t by any chance, neglect to obtain residence permits for you, Shazuul and Hazathel, did you?”

  Cyborgs are only allowed to be on Earth by special permission, just like all other strangers. I close my eyes, and realize that he didn’t neglect to get the permit. “You did that on purpose,” I say. Nobody answers me, but then they don’t need to.

  “Your agreement,” I say and look at Hazathel, “wouldn’t happen to be that you immigrate illegally, so that nobody knows that you are visiting your family, would it?” The scorpion’s excited rattling gives me my answer. I sigh dramatically and put my head in my hands. “Fine,” I continue. “I assume that we are going to start our search for Cassie Burnett, and that Hazathel will at some point … go missing.” When I say Cassie’s name, Shazuul gets very excited. I think he likes her. God knows why. Further difficulties come to mind. What will happen when we have the woman and want to take her to my father’s lab? For the first time, I don’t view the idea of turning over a pregnant woman over to my father for experiments neutrally. Something like unease creeps into my heart, but this time, I do not push it to the side. I examine it, instead. Where is it coming from? I really must have changed, if I am no longer willing to do my father’s bidding without thinking. I realize something else. “I can understand,” I say slowly, “that Hazathel and Shazuul don’t want to be officially registered. But why not you?” I look at Johar. He and Hazathel exchange a look I don’t like. The eyebrows going up meaningfully, the shaking of the head and the inconspicuous exchange of information – all of those things that make others feel excluded.