Perhaps that was pathetic. I wasn’t really sure what was a ‘normal’ amount of people to be friendly with, but I got the feeling that three was a bit on the low side.
Then again, how many people could say that they were friends with a shapeshifting alien? Certainly, that had to count for something.
Although such thoughts comforted me, they did little to help the situation. And while our imprisonment was borderline tolerable most of the time, Lazer’s occasional appearances hung over our heads, not to mention the fact that Mimic’s people were facing their inevitable destruction and I was powerless to help them.
I hated being powerless. I had gotten so used to taking matters into my own hands that it went against my grain to just sit around and rot.
Heavy footsteps interrupted my repetitive thoughts, and I looked to the door. I was hoping that it was the tall, skinny guard who often was on sani-pack duty, or even the short, portly guard who handled the food the most. But no, it was none other than Lazer. Of course.
His chest was puffed out even more than usual and his perfectly coiffed hair was slicked back. His tattoo was showing under his open collar, shifting under his skin and changing colors in a specific pattern that was all the rage about ten years ago. If being smarmy didn’t get Gonzales in trouble, I would have mocked his ridiculous peacocking.
Then again, if Lazer was here, Gonzales was already in trouble.
None of us moved, or even looked at him. We stayed quiet, although the air soon became charged with our tension. I found myself imagining all the different ways I would give him his just desserts, surprising myself at my own vehemence, until he stopped once more at Gonzales’s cell.
“Rise and shine, big mouth!” the guard chorused, his voice almost sing-song. I felt all of my muscles tense as she stood and slowly shuffled forward, clearly waiting for something to go terribly wrong. “It’s your big day!” Lazer continued as she reached the shield.
“My…day?” she murmured, clearly just as confused and apprehensive as I was.
“Come now, big mouth! Did you forget?” He laughed and put his hands on his hips like some sort of ancient sitcom. “You scientists, always so absorbed in the lab! Well, don’t worry, as soon as I found out, I knew we couldn’t let such a momentous occasion just slip by.”
Gonzales’s normally golden skin lost all of its color and she could only stare at the guard with wide eyes. “What…occasion?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not letting this slip by while you’re so…occupied. Wait here.” He took a step away only to stop and then turn back to her. “Oh, and close your eyes. Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise, right?”
“Right,” she murmured, doing as he asked. The bully of a man laughed before whipping around to face the rest of us. “Any of you say a word, and I’ll make you regret it.”
We didn’t make a single sound and he practically skipped off, as much as an overly-muscled, hyper-masculine Neanderthal could skip. Only a couple of minutes passed before he returned, rolling a cart in front of him. I had to blink several times to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing.
But sure enough, no matter how many times I batted my eyes, the scene before me remained unchanged. Sitting in the center of the cart was none other than a traditional birthday cake, complete with white frosting and a good chunk of burning candles.
Reaching down, the man pulled a collapsible chair from the bottom and set it just so in front of the cart before pressing the ‘deploy’ button. Once everything was all set, he crossed back to the console at the end of the hall that controlled our shields and dropped Gonzales’s.
“Are your eyes closed?” he called, quickly walking back to her.
Although I had always been suspicious, I was now absolutely certain the man was an absolute psychopath. How else could one explain his melodrama and sheer delight in torturing Gonzales? He had this obsessive need to break her down that I just didn’t understand.
“Yes,” she answered quietly.
“Alright, good. Give me your hand.”
The rest of us held our breaths, watching without a word as he slowly, carefully, even gingerly led her to the chair. Once she sat down, he hurried around to the other side of the table and clapped his hands.
“Alright, open your eyes!”
She obeyed, as she always did, and the look on her face was sheer confusion. I couldn’t blame her. I was still bordering somewhere between disbelief and incredulousness, and I’d had a whole minute to stare at the scene Lazer had set up for her.
“Happy Birthday!” the man cawed, making some gesture with his hands that I guessed was supposed to be some sort of celebration.
“Happy… Birthday?” she managed to repeat, her eyes going wider than seemed humanly possible and her eyes shuttling from him to the cake as her mind desperately tried to piece together the absurdity of the scene. “It’s my birthday?”
“It is! Congratulations, you’ve hit the big two-seven.”
“But…” She was still struggling to speak, as if her thoughts were refusing to churn out comprehensible speech. “If it’s my birthday, then I’ve been here—”
“Two and a half months!” Lazer said. “And what a two and a half months it’s been! I feel like we’ve really grown closer in this time, haven’t we, big mouth?”
“I, uh, we—”
She was interrupted by the man’s manic laughter. “If only you could see your face right now!” He cockled like an actual rooster. “If you’re wondering what flavor it is, it’s your favorite.”
“How…” She paused to take a deep breath and center herself. I wanted more than anything to burst through the wall and stop this mockery of celebration, but I held myself steady. “How did you know?” she asked.
“I have my ways. Now, eat up!” Her hands jerked up in compliance, but she hesitated for just a split-second. “What’s wrong? Do you not like it?”
“No, it’s just, uh…there isn’t any cutlery.”
“Will you look at that! I can’t believe I forgot!” He laughed again, every punctuation of the sound growing more and more insane. “Looks like you’ll just have to eat it like a barbarian. Go ahead, dig in.”
She looked dubiously at him once more before bringing her hand up once more, reaching toward the cake and tentatively breaking off a small piece of it. Lazer watched with unchecked glee, his grin so wolfish that I wondered if he poisoned it. But what could she do? What could any of us do?
I swore to myself that I would never be so powerless again. I couldn’t stand to just sit by and watch my friends be mistreated.
“How does it taste?” Gonzales could only nod and give him a thumbs up, her mouth full of icing and cake. “You like it! Well then, stop picking at it like you’re on a diet. Go ahead, dig in!” He crossed around behind her, leaning down to grab her hand and shove it into the cake. “There you go. Grab a nice hunk.” Once he was satisfied, he pulled her arm back, then forced her hand up to her mouth. “Isn’t it delicious?” he cooed, not letting go until she ate the entire crumbling, icing-drenched hunk.
There was only so much I could stand. My hands were shaking, and I jumped to my feet, mouth opening and closing like I wanted to say something, but I knew anything that came out of my mouth would just make it worse for Gonzales.
But Lazer noticed me and shot me a wide, aching smile. “Aw, you want some too?” he asked, voice cloyingly friendly. “If Gonzales isn’t too hungry, maybe you can get a slice. What do you think, big mouth? Are you very, very hungry?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could utter a single syllable, one of his hands went to the back of her head and slammed her face-first into the cake.
“Sorry, aspie, but looks like someone is a greedy little piggy.” He continued to shove her face around in the cake, sending remnants of it this way and that. It was worse than any horror flick I had ever seen, and I threw myself at the barrier once more.
It didn’t matter how many times I tried and failed, some
thing in my mind wouldn’t let me sit still and watch the psychopath torture my friend. Cake went this way and that, while Gonzales’s hands beat against the table, trying to push herself up but to no avail.
“Stop it!” I screamed, my voice breaking and scorching my throat raw, but I didn’t care. “Let her go!”
“Coward!” I heard Ciangi shriek beside me. Her little fists made almost no sound against the shields holding us in, but I knew she was struggling just as much as I was. From what I could see, Bahn was also running to the back of his cell, so he could charge at the forcefield holding him captive, only to be flung back on contact, his clothes smoking.
“Geez, big mouth. Your friends are so upset that you’re not sharing with them. How could you be so selfish? Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of good guy? Savior of the universe and discoverer of new life or something?”
He paused for just a moment, allowing the weapons engineer to turn her face to the side and heave in big gulps of air. She murmured something, but none of us heard, and Lazer didn’t seem to either.
“What was that?” he asked, leaning down so his ear was closer to her cake-covered lips.
“That—” She gasped. “—was Higgens.” It was like a flash. One moment she was lying there, gasping and seeming to hold back tears, the next, she whipped her head to the side and Lazer was screaming.
He tried to pull back, but something was holding him close to her. His fists lashed out at her, but she caught them in her hands. Our screams faded as we watched, both shocked and puzzled by what was happening in front of us.
Lazer’s own cries increased in volume, curses punctuating every other word, until he eventually stumbled back, holding the side of his head. I could see blood going down his collar, but I couldn’t tell from where. The only thing I could make out was him howling a single phrase over and over again.
“My ear!”
Gonzales stood and spit something out of her mouth that I couldn’t recognize. She didn’t hesitate for even a moment, and dashed to the console at the end of the hall.
Despite all the confusion and the terror, I felt triumph swell in my chest. She was going to do it! She was going to make it!
It was like time slowed down and everything was moving in slow motion, but just when she was about to reach it, alarms went off and the console started to slide into the ground.
“No!” I heard her cry, leaping toward it. But she was too far. By the time she landed, she slid over nothing but bare floor. “No, no, no!”
“Gonzales!” I shouted, trying to catch her attention before she could fall into panic. “The door! It’s still open! Go!”
She looked at us, blood down her chin and neck. “I can’t leave you,” she whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear.
“You have to! Go! Get a message to Mimic!”
She nodded, something passing between us that couldn’t quite be put into words, and she bolted back toward the end of the hall. Past our cells, past Lazer who was still rolling around in pain, and into the doorway.
And then, she was out and beyond my sight. I couldn’t believe it, and didn’t even dare to celebrate.
“Did…did she make it?” Ciangi whispered.
I didn’t get a chance to answer. We heard shouts, and then shots being fired, then nothing. My breath stopped, and I could only wait.
It didn’t take long for several guards to come in, two of which were dragging Gonzales, who had several tranquilizer darts sticking out of her chest and torso. They threw her into her cell while others came to pick Lazer up and pull him out. As they got him to his feet, I finally was able to see that he was missing more than half of one of his ears. Nothing lethal, but certainly terrifying looking.
None of the guards said anything, or even tried to hurt Gonzales for her assault of their coworker. The console slid back up from the floor, and they called her shield back before exiting with their wounded friend.
The three of us stood there, in shock from everything that had unfolded. I tried to wrap my mind around the flood of information that had just swamped me, but it seemed so surreal. If it wasn’t for Gonzales, crumpled and battered in her cell, and the small chunk of Lazer’s discarded flesh, I might have thought it was a fever-dream brought on by insanity.
There didn’t seem to be anything I could say that fit the situation, so I slid to my feet and watched Gonzales breathe steadily. The only thing I knew for certain was that I absolutely needed to get us out of here.
10
SURPRISE
WE DIDN’T GET food for quite a while. I couldn’t say how it was in lengths of days, but I knew it was far past the schedule that my body had become accustomed to. Gonzales awoke somewhere past what I guessed was twenty-four hours, but didn’t say much. She wiped her face as best she could, but there was still cake all over her collar and front. I didn’t want to think of how the stale frosting must itch and scratch at her skin, or how constantly smelling the sweet confection had to be a permanent reminder of the horror she had experienced.
The minutes didn’t pass quickly either, but rather trickled by, almost excruciatingly so. With every breath that passed, I wondered if Lazer would return, intent on revenge, and I was sure my friends were thinking the same. I wondered if the other guards would come and punish us, or if they would decide that we were more trouble than we were worth.
However, the door didn’t open, and no one came to beat any of us into a pulp. As the days passed, we stopped speaking to each other, conserving our saliva as best we could. Humans were only able to live without water for three days, and although each of us had a singular ration of water that had been given to us that morning, even drawing it out could only sustain us for so long.
After long enough, I began to wonder if they were just going to let us all starve in our little boxes, but before we grew too desperate, the door finally opened.
It was Lazer who stepped through first, and my heart dropped. It seemed that they had been able to regrow his stolen ear, but bruising still mottled his skin on that half of his face. His expression was one of stone, and I knew without a doubt that one or all of us was going to die.
He said nothing, simply marching forward into the hall. But then, someone entered behind him, a guard that I didn’t recognize at all who was pushing the food cart as usual. Did…did they give him a chaperone to deal with us?
The bully still said nothing as they reached my cell first. Instead, he wordlessly picked up a tray and handed it to me while the other one crossed behind him until he was out of my view.
I took the tray tentatively, expecting him to flip it into my face, or drop it at the last second. But instead, he let it go and I was able to take it into the back of my cell, fearing the worst.
“Huh, so this is their holding area?” the other guard asked from somewhere I couldn’t see.
“Yup.”
“And why are these folks being held? Assassins? Spies? Traitors?”
“Something like that,” Lazer answered, moving on to Ciangi.
“Ah, that’s cool.” There was a pause before the stranger spoke again. “And what’s this thingie for? Looks super official.”
“That’s the control panel. It’s the only place we can fully drop the shields.”
“Oh, seriously? How do we do that?”
Lazer sounded like he was answering out of habit rather than actually hearing what the man was asking. “You slide your badge then press the button by each cell listing. Then you punch in the daily password and then they drop.” There was a beat of silence, and suddenly the bulky man whipped around. “Wait, what are you doing?!”
I rushed to the front of my cell, ready to press myself to the barrier so I could see what was happening beyond my cell’s view, but the shield dropped, almost making me stumble forward.
“You idiot!” Lazer cried, drawing my attention to where he was trying to lunge at the other guard. The man simply ducked and vaulted over Lazer’s head before landing neatly behind him.
<
br /> “No, not an idiot,” he said, his voice raising and his form beginning to ripple and warp. His hair transitioned from a tawny brown to a beautiful white, and his eyes turned lilac. Within seconds, it wasn’t some strange guard standing with their back to us, but none other than Mimic herself. “Just a shapeshifter.”
“Mimic!” I cried, my heart leaping into my throat.
She turned and shot me a wink, only to have Lazer lunge at her. I shouted a warning, but the alien didn’t need it. She calmly dropped into a crouch, reached up, and physically threw the man down the hall. He landed, hard, and slid even further, coming to a halt with a groan.
“Oh my gosh,” Ciangi cried, rushing forward to give the alien woman a hug as she stood. “It’s you. It’s really you!”
“Yes, last time I checked,” she said, smiling softly.
I too found myself rushing forward and throwing my arms around them both. My emotions were bucking wildly, and I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh, or cry, or jump up and down and scream until my voice was hoarse. But I could figure that out later. The most important thing was that Mimic was here.
“But how is this possible?” I murmured, letting go just long enough to step back and look at her face once more. “How are you here?”
She was just as I remembered, kind eyes in a pointed face, with hair past her shoulders and a look of curiosity always present in her features. I realized that she would never age considering this body was not her true form, but I felt like I could see some of the stress wearing at her visage, etching lines into her skin to never be forgotten.
“When you didn’t respond to my messages, I knew that something had to be wrong. Even under the most extreme of circumstances, I knew that all of you wouldn’t be ignoring me under your own volition.”
“That explains why you came,” Bahn said, stepped out of his cell with a look of wonder. “But not how. Your planet is very far away, to put it lightly.”
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