“No. And have you?”
“Yes,” I answered after a brief pause. I figured I might as well be honest. “A while ago, when I was younger. She was my first girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend. This is a word for partner?”
“Yes.”
“I see. And you cared for this woman very much?”
“Yes. I did.”
“And what happened?”
Geez, I did not predict that this conversation was going to be headed down bitter nostalgia lane. “Oh you know, it was pretty stereotypical. She was ambitious and went to a great college to study marine extinction, and I went to a vocational colony school for facilities work. We tried to make it work, but eventually we just had to…let go.”
“And this is something humans do? Let go of each other over great distances?”
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Honestly, the physical distance doesn’t matter nearly as much as the distance between futures. She outgrew me, plain and simple. Her star was shining brightly, and my star… Well, it was burnt out before I was born.”
She was frowning now. “I see.” Without another word, she turned back to the desk, data-log in hand. I didn’t know what she meant by that, but I didn’t want to ask. In fact, I needed a bit of time to myself to deal with the unpleasant feelings I thought I had long since locked down.
“Hey, I’ll be back in a bit. You be good, alright?”
“Absolutely. I haven’t yet learned how to be bad.”
I smiled wanly then let myself out.
THE SHIP WAS ODDLY quiet as I spent a couple of hours just walking around. Although the peace was nice, it didn’t set well with me. I couldn’t help but feel like something was off.
After the unsettling sensation didn’t abate, I shrugged and headed back to my room. I was sure that Mimi would have come up with some new brilliant plan to use the scanner and was looking forward to it—even if I would only understand about half the words she said. In less than a week, her grasp on the English language far exceeded mine.
But, as I climbed up a ladder onto my floor, I noticed my door was already wide open.
“No!” I cried, rushing forward.
Heart in my throat, I saw that my room had been ransacked, my scrap bin dumped over, and everything upturned. Now that I was closer, I could see that blaster fire marked the wall.
No! No, no, no! How had they found her?!
I bolted to the elevator, sliding my card in the reader, but it flashed red.
“Higgens!”
My comm crackled to life and for the first time, I was absolutely livid.
“What?!” I snapped.
“Oh, so the gutter-worm grew a spine finally.” Frances’s voice was even more condescending than usual, and it made we want to dropkick him and all his descendants. “You’ve been acting so dodgy lately that I thought a visit down to your quarters was necessary. Imagine how perplexed we were to find you in your room when your comm and card-reader were clearly two floors lower?”
“What did you do to her?”
“Oh, a her, is it?” He laughed and the sound set my teeth on edge. “I have to admit, Higgens, I didn’t know you had it in you. Who’da thought that out of all the people in the universe, it was you who would make first contact. What a disappointment, right?”
I slammed my fist against the elevator, taking my rage out on the door that was barring me from helping my friend.
“Let her go! We destroyed her home. She just wants to get back to her people.”
“I don’t care if she wants to be a freaking unicorn. Do you have any idea the type of credits we will get? What kind of advancement we’ll have as a species with this kind of morphing technology? I could retire tomorrow!”
“Don’t do this! She’s a sentient being, not some shiny rock you can buy and sell like a diamond.”
“Please. She makes diamonds look like chump change. Don’t worry, Higgens. I’m not a cruel man. You’re not in danger, you’re just confined to your floor. I’ll make sure you get a bit of a finder’s fee. I’m just generous like that.”
My comm clicked off and I let out the longest stream of curses I had ever uttered. How could this have happened? I had been so careful!
I sank to the ground, head in my hands. This was the one thing I had ever had to do that mattered, and I had messed it up. I was the exact failure I had always known I was. That everyone always said I was.
I was nothing.
“No,” I growled.
This wasn’t going to be it. I wasn’t going to just leave Mimi in the clutches of a jerk who didn’t even see her as a living being. I was going to rescue her and get her off this ship if it was the last thing I did.
Newly strengthened, I ran back to my room. I gathered all the supplies I needed and strapped them to my body. Once I was sure I had everything, I went back to the same ladder I had shimmied up just moments before.
If I remembered correctly, there was a vent that had been welded shut just after I came on board. With the right solvent, I could get right through the blocked-off entrance and make my way to the upper levels.
But first, I had to make sure they couldn’t find me. For the first time since I had arrived, I set my card and my comm on my desk.
Frances wanted to dance? Well, I could dance. And I always stepped on toes when I did.
7
IMITATION IS THE FINEST FORM OF FLATTERY
I THOUGHT I had known fear when those whirling teeth had bitten into my home. But that terror was nothing compared to the body-paralyzing fear I felt now.
They had me in some sort of hermetically-sealed room, without a crack or single pore I could shift and force myself through. They were going to take me to their home, just as I had feared ever since I learned the truth of my situation.
I had read much in my studies, and too often the cruelty of man was proven again and again. They killed each other with abandon, from hacking off limbs, to burning at the stake, to suffocation with noxious gases. If they had such disregard for each other, how could they ever care for one such as I?
Life was so different in this form. So, complicated and layered. Things that had never mattered before now were incredibly important. I had urges and instincts I never understood. Perhaps that was the price one paid for morphing into such a different, sentient lifeform.
I could hear my friend yelling at the man who shot me through his wrist speaker. He was angry. I had never heard him speak so lividly. Was…was he that way for me?
No.
He couldn’t be.
We had just met. I was a strange alien who didn’t understand anything about his culture. Who asked him questions about love that made him uncomfortable, and spent hours sitting silently while I tried to find some way home.
“Cheer up there, buttercup. You’re going to be an absolute rockstar back home.”
“Buttercup,” I repeated. It soothed me to rattle off the words I knew. They were completely alien to me, and yet I knew what they were. It was always a strange sensation, and one I never grew tired of. “A herbaceous plant with bright yellow, cup-shaped flowers, common in grassland and as a garde—”
The older man slammed his hand against the barrier. “Enough of that! You’re there to look cute, not rattle off like a computer.” He smiled at me but the expression was so unlike Higgens. How was that possible? Was that a human thing? “Come on now, why don’t you do your thing.”
“Do…my thing?”
“Yeah. Make your form go all watery then be someone.” His eyes widened and he looked quite excited. “Why not take a crack as me?”
“You…you want me to take your form?”
“Yeah. That’d be grand.”
“I need your DNA.”
“What?”
“Humans are incredibly complex creatures. I cannot just shift into you on sight. I either need to read your full medical workup, or have a touch of DNA.”
“You think I am some sort of idiot?” He snarled, face going red. I hadn’t known t
hat humans could change color to convey emotion. How…unattractive.
“I do not know enough about you to come to any sort of conclusion about your intelligence.”
He snarled and said several words that I did not understand the meaning of. Maybe something about fecal matter and structures used to hold back water?
However, I was distracted in the middle of his rant by one of the panels on the wall wiggling slightly. My mind automatically went through all the possible options it could be and whether it would be dangerous to me or not.
Then, the small square of metal came loose, only to be caught just before it hit the floor by Higgens!
He had come for me!
His kind eyes moved from me to the man who was trapping me. He needed to close his distance.
Right! A distraction.
“Wait!” I blurted, holding both hands up in what I hoped was a normal-human gesture. “Let me show you what forms I can take!”
That seemed to cool the man and his pallor began to return to normal. “By all means, entertain me.”
I closed my eyes to concentrate. I had no idea how humans managed to focus with their color-intensive vision. Instead of finding things by heat emissions or vibration, they seemed highly dependent on their strange, mirrored view of the world.
It took several moments, but I felt my body relax, melting into a listless sort of slumber as I melted down to the floor. I was sure it looked horrifying to them, but it was completely painless. Even a bit of a relief to not have to hold a form so alien to my own.
But I couldn’t stay that way for long. I called up the image of Higgens in my head. The strong set of his jaw. The kind way his hazel eyes would regard me. The way his thin, long fingers would work at one task or another.
I felt the change sweep over me and then it was done. When I opened my eyes again, I was looking at my captor on a much more eye-to-eye level.
“I’ll be. That’s uncanny, I tell you. Who else can you…”
He never finished that sentence, because Higgens came up behind him, bringing a metal rod down on the older man’s head. I let out a shocked shout, but my rescuer pressed his fingers to his lip. What was that supposed to mean?
Oh! Probably to be quiet.
I complied and Higgens crossed over to some sort of panel. He pressed a few buttons and the shielding that was holding me in a small square pen dropped.
Not for the first time since I arrived, I was flooded with emotions. These systems that were still so new to me overwhelmed the logic of my mind, and the next thing I knew, I was rushing forward to throw my arms around Higgens.
Something was leaking from my eyes, but I didn’t care.
He had come for me.
My friend had come for me.
What more could I ask?
8
UNLIKELY ALLIES
I STOOD THERE, frozen to the spot as Mimi pressed my own body to me. It would have been a whole lot more awkward if I couldn’t feel the gratitude rolling off my friend in waves.
“Where’d you learn to do this?” I asked, returning her hug with all the comfort I had within me.
“On the net.” Slowly, she shifted back into the form I knew. We shared a tender smile and I gently raised a hand to wipe her tears away.
She leaned her face into my palm, and I had never been so tempted to kiss someone in my entire life.
And then the alarms went off.
“What is that?” she cried, clapping her hands over her ears.
“Crap! They must have been linked to Giomatti’s vital signs. Come on, we gotta go!”
I grabbed her wrist and took off, sprinting out of the door before it was sealed in lockdown. If the ship was remotely set up according to protocol, I had three minutes to get us off the ship and to safety.
“Where are we going?” I heard Mimi cry as I dragged her along. I was pretty sure that she had never run in this form, so I was sure she wasn’t having the best time, but I couldn’t let her slow down.
“There are escape shuttles for the crew in case of emergency. If I can get one, we can get out of here before he wakes up or anyone else tries to take you back.”
“What of the others who were with him? They also had the blasters, as I believe you call him.”
“That was probably his security, Masis and Umbusala. We definitely do not want to run into them.”
“But if these alarms are going off, aren’t the escape routes the first thing they will check?”
“Let’s hope not.”
We sprinted all out, my heart beating out of my chest all the way down the hall. We turned this way, then that, bursting through doors. Not for the first time, I found myself grateful we ran on a skeleton crew.
And then it was there. The door leading to the hangar bay. Of course, it was on the same level of the bridge, considering essential personnel were that much less expendable than us peons.
“There it is! That’s the door!”
I could see that the panel was still lit up blue, which meant it was still accessible. We had seconds, at most.
Rushing through it, I slammed in the code. As soon as the slightest crack opened, I forced my way through, yanking Mimi with me.
Only to come face to face with Gonzales’s gun.
“So, this is why you were asking all those questions,” she murmured, eyeing the shifter behind me.
“You have to understand.” I said, completely breathless as I held up my hands in a symbol of surrender. “She just wants to go home. She doesn’t deserve to be locked up in some lab on Earth, light years away from anyone like her.”
The woman stood there, impassive. “And you really think you can do this on your own?”
“He is not alone!” Mimi said resolutely. “He has me.”
“And you got yourself captured.” With a roll of her eyes, the engineer dropped her gun and offered her hand. “Come on. You’re going to need me if you want to get one of these hunk of junks outta here.”
“Wait, you’re helping me?”
“Of course. You found alien life. If you think I’m going to be on the wrong side of history for that, you’re dead wrong. Now come on, we’ve been prepping for this ever since your girlie got captured a couple of hours ago.”
“We?” I echoed.
She didn’t answer and I followed her up the gangway of a ship. It was all a little surreal as we rushed toward the cockpit, the door closing behind us.
We were getting away!
We were escaping!
As elated as I was, I stopped short when I realized we were not alone in the cockpit. Ciangi and Bahn were already strapped into the copilot and navigator seats.
“You guys are coming too?” I asked, voice cracking.
“Yeah. I gotta pick your head more about that scanner idea. Can’t do that if you’re dead.”
“And if you think I’m passing up on the opportunity to study a willing subject that also just so happens to be a shapeshifter, you’re more insane than the Earth government is going to try to make you seem in their smear campaign.”
“Enough explanations,” Gonzales said, jumping into the pilot’s seat. “Everyone strap in, I’m about to punch us through the hangar hatch.”
“Um, aren’t you supposed to open it?”
“Yeah, normally. But normally we aren’t on lockdown.”
“Right. Well, go ahead then.”
“Thanks for the permission. I don’t know what I would have done without it. Hold on, everyone. Either we’re gonna break through, or blow up in a fiery ball of death.”
Ciangi let out a light laugh. “Sounds like college all over again.”
I clenched the seat as the engines of the escape vessel kicked into gear, but I felt small, cool fingers brush at my wrist. Looking down, I realized that Mimi was trying to hold my hand.
I let go of the armrest of my chair and wrapped my fingers through hers. Our gazes locked, and I watched her face as we hurtled forward.
Time seemed to suspend it
self for a moment, her hair floating around her head lazily, her eyes regarding me with an admiration that no one had ever had for me before. In that moment, I knew I cared for her in a way that I had never quite felt for anyone else in my short life.
“Brace yourself for impact!”
Alarms were going off everywhere and the ship’s systems were delivering repeat warnings that a crash was imminent. The cacophony was intense, but nothing could disrupt the connection between us.
And then we hit the hangar wall.
My whole body jolted and it felt like my skeleton left my body. My teeth rattled, my head ached, and my stomach did about a million jerks that made me want to lose my lunch. Sparks flew. The other engineers screamed. The ship’s computer was going crazy.
Then, just as suddenly as the wild ride had happened, we broke through. The dark, endless void of space stretched out beyond our forward-facing cockpit window.
No one said anything for a moment, then a loud whoop came from Gonzales. “That’s right! We made it, baby!”
Buckles came undone, and the next thing I knew, Mimi was in my lap, arms wrapped around me as she hugged me with all her might. Which was nothing to sneeze at, I might add.
“Don’t worry, Mimi. We’re going to get you home,” I whispered to her.
She pulled away from me. “It will be a long journey. And dangerous. Your people will come after you, you know.”
“Then let them.” I said, feeling more confidence than I had in my entire life. “With all of us here, there’s no way they can stop us.”
And I meant it.
This was just the beginning of the journey, but I was in it for the long haul.
Like they used to say on Earth, for better or for worse, I was sticking by her side.
MIMIC AND THE JOURNEY HOME
I
THROUGH THE WORMHOLE
1
SPACE AGE SLIP N’ SLIDE
Mimic and the Space Engineer Boxed Set, Books 1 - 3 Page 5