Alien Resistance (Zyrgin Warriors Book 4)

by Marie Dry

  Viglar had just given her the tool to learn what she needed to never lose a patient. He’d also shown her in four hours how much they were never taught in university.

  She wouldn’t admit to this superior alien how worried she was. “I’ve learned a lot, alien. You’ll have to be specific.”

  He went to the wall and returned with another, even thicker book. “This is what medical students were taught a hundred years ago.” He put it into her arms and Madison nearly dropped it, it was so heavy. Now she knew why he’d synthesized physical books. He wanted to hammer his point home with visual aids.

  He produced a slim rectangle from his pocket and handed it to her. How did it fit in his pocket, it was three inches wide and about four inches long. As she watched a screen lighted up. It was some kind of alien TC.

  “I programmed all the information you need to study into the tablet. Study that tonight and mark what you don’t know. You are dismissed. Return tomorrow at six.”

  She would’ve killed him if he’d said anything about how many red lines she’d left in the textbook. She looked at the slim gadget in her hands. How many red lines would she have to make in this one? She’d figure out how to do it, no way was she admitting she had doubts about being able to operate it.

  “I’m allowed to take this home?” She tapped a finger on the tablet.

  He gave her a stare so cold and menacing the temperature dropped several degrees. “I will execute anyone you show it to.”

  “I won’t show it to anyone,” she promised through clenched teeth. She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go.”

  Before she saw him move, he’d grabbed hold of her and pressing her against his hot, incredibly muscled body he placed his forehead against hers. He stood like that, his hand on her vulnerable nape, his other hand in the small of her back, those red eyes much to close, for several minutes.

  Madison shivered and it wasn’t with fear. It was as if her dreams had conditioned her body to respond to him. When she thought she’d dissolve into a shameful puddle of lust just from him holding her and touching foreheads, he stepped back.

  Trying to hide her reaction she rushed to the door and giving him a sarcastic salute, she went to see a patient she was worried about. It took a long time for the trembling to stop. She wanted to tell Rachel the good news, but it would have to wait. Madison had a patient waiting for X-rays and she wanted to see if it had been done yet. The machine was supposed to be fixed today. It would also serve to take her attention from the way she’d responded to him.

  Madison quickly checked her patient who still waited for X-rays. She went to the X-ray department. Ever since she started working here, the machinery had been broken more often than it had worked. She couldn’t release her patient who’d been in a car accident, before she saw exactly what was going on with her neck injury.

  The nurse shook her head when she saw Madison who’d come to check if it worked every day. “I’m sorry Dr. Johnson, the X-ray machine still isn’t working.

  The nurse was literally pulling her hair out. “I’ve called and called and the technicians keep promising me they’ll fix it, but they don’t even pitch to do that.”

  Madison battled the fear in her gut. Last week it had been the ultrasound and CT scanners. And those still weren’t fixed. All the companies who used to provide this equipment had gone out of business. “Have you reported this to Frankenstein?” To Madison’s chagrin, everyone now called him that.

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy, I’m not going near him? He scares me. Have you seen his teeth?”

  Madison drummed her fingers on the counter. “I don’t care if his teeth look like an alligator’s teeth. They claim they rule earth so let him fix this.” She didn’t want to think about the way his incisors had grown.

  “We do not claim to rule earth, human, we do it.”

  Madison closed her eyes and prayed for deliverance. She didn’t want to see him anymore today. “I’ve had more than my quota of being picked on by you, go pester someone else.” She heard the nurse suck in a shocked breath.

  He stared at her with those cold reptilian eyes. Did he hear her calling him Frankenstein? She didn’t care. If he didn’t want to hear bad things about himself, he shouldn’t creep up on her.

  “The X-ray machine isn’t working and I need it urgently for a patient who was in an accident. I need to know how serious her neck injury is.” She was temped, but she wouldn’t ask him if he was stalking her. He might withdraw his permission for them to work as doctors. Though she had to admit he was cold and sarcastic and worked them like slaves, but he wasn’t spiteful like Jacobson. Although pretending he was going to eat her was the lowest of the low things he could do to her. She’d never been so frightened and humiliated in her life.

  “Show me the broken equipment.”

  She took him to the X-ray room and he curled his lip at the machinery. “It is primitive and easily fixed.” He stood grunting for a while and she debated running for her life. She didn’t know what the grunting meant, and he wasn’t even looking at her, but it sounded threatening somehow. When he’d held her close and pressed his forehead against hers, she’d thought he’d been almost tender. None of that was visible now.

  He stopped and fixed her with that black soulless gaze, looking like those creepy guys in the old vampire movies. Complete with what looked like red veins drifting into them. And why did his eyes make red tendrils when he looked at her? It never happened with the others--she’d asked them. The memory of his eyes flashing red before he beheaded the drug dealer haunted her. “Someone will be here soon to fix the machine. Show me the patient.”

  They walked back to the intensive ward and she resented having to run to keep up with his long strides. In the ward, he ignored everybody else and ran his silver scanner over her patient. They’d placed her in traction and didn’t dare take off the weights until they knew exactly what happened with her neck. He produced a silver disk as if from thin air and placed it on her patient’s neck. It expanded and circled the woman’s swollen neck. In front of Madison’s eyes, the swelling disappeared and her patient’s color improved. Without a word Viglar left.

  Madison stared at her patient, looking healthy and ready to be released, and rushed after Frankenstein. “Dr--F--Dr. Viglar.”

  He stopped and turned. “You will address me as Viglar with the proper respect.”

  “Viglar, when will you teach us to use your technology.” She’d learned a lot this morning from the old textbook, but if she had access to their technology she’d never have to sit helpless while someone died in her arms. She had a reputation for never losing a patient, but she feared the day she’d be confronted with an injury or illness she didn’t know how to treat. Sweat ran down her back.

  ‘Help me Maddie, please make it better.’

  “You will never have access to our technology.”

  She shook of the words that had haunted her since her eight birthday. “That’s barbaric. Don’t you realize how many people we could save. And anyway, you said you’d teach me.”

  He ran his silver scanner over her, cocking his head. “I do not care. No human will have our technology. I will teach you to heal the human way.”

  She was tempted to grab his gadget and stomp on it. “You monster.”

  “I am a Zyrgin, not a monster.”

  “Never mind.” She stormed away and ended up in the cafeteria, still shaking with temper. “Irritating, superior--and he still hasn’t bothered to ask my name,” she muttered. She hated when he called her human in that superior way of his. As if he couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge her as an individual with her own name.

  She grabbed a cup of the awful coffee the cafeteria served. She’d heard a rumor that the last of the coffee plantations had stopped producing coffee beans due to infertile soil. She refused to belief it was more than a rumor. If she had to, she’d grow her own coffee beans in a pot in her flat.

  “I haven’t got time for this,” she
muttered. She needed to get the caffeine and run.

  “What’s got you so worked up?” Rachel asked next to Madison, a cup of coffee in her hand. “I could see steam coming out of your ears all the way from the door.”

  “The X-ray machine isn’t working and it doesn’t look like they’re manufactured anymore.” She threw up her hands and coffee spilled from her cup. “We can’t even find anyone to pitch and fix it.” Madison hastily put down her cup. She had to finish her shift and start the blasted painting. She didn’t have time to spend here.

  Rachel was about to take a sip of her coffee, but put down the plastic cup to frown at Madison. “That’s impossible. Too many hospitals depend on the equipment. There must be a company making more.”

  “I don’t think so. Don’t you find it strange? The equipment is breaking down and mostly it’s maintained, but whenever it can’t be fixed it’s impossible to replace it. There’s that rumor that the coffee plantation has shut down. And chocolate is becoming hideously expensive. And what about the power cuts and water shortages.”

  “What are you trying to say, Madison?”

  Madison shrugged and moved in the direction of the door. “I don’t know. Do you think a civilization realizes when it’s falling? I mean, what if our civilization is in its last days, but we don’t realize because it’s happened so gradually that we didn’t notice we are going to hell?”

  Rachel looked stunned.

  Madison hunched her shoulders. “Ignore me, I’m just tired. Hey, I’ve got some good news for a change.”

  Rachel smiled, but it was a bitter smile. “I’ve heard. Your Frankenstein very magnanimously said that we could work as doctors again.”

  “He’s not my Frankenstein.” No matter how good a body he had, that guy’s sense of humor would kill any relationship. Her body flamed when she remembered that moment he’d pressed her against him. If he’d kissed her, touched her more intimately, would she have responded?

  “Isn’t he? I have to give him his due, he’s done miracles these last few days, but you’re the only one he talks to.”

  Madison shrugged, tried to look innocent. “I bug him all the time, is all. It’s not like he wants to talk to me.” Except when he wanted to scare the pants of her with his sick jokes. Or press that ridged head against her in a gesture that meant who knows what. “I’ve gotta run.” Her alien didn’t hesitate to chase people out of the cafeteria if he thought they’d stayed too long. She had to suppress a wail. He wasn’t her alien. What was wrong with her today.

  The hospital had undergone a big change in two short months. They had trained security guards with brand new uniforms. The hospital was now much bigger with the front door opening and closing automatically for the first time in months. Their wards were large with brand new beds and equipment.

  Madison had to admit that the aliens didn’t eschew hard work. Viglar jumped in and worked harder than all of them put together. During the day he helped with the building and if he was needed with the patients, he’d do that and then return to building. At night, he went from ward to ward checking everything. Every morning they released patients that he’d somehow cured during the night.

  “Have you heard the other piece of news?”

  Madison moved toward the door again. “No. Give over, but walk with me. I’ve got to get to work.” She’d been working all the time and barely knew what happened around her.

  “Once a month, Frankenstein is doing the rounds at an orphanage and shelter, and now that we are doctors again he said he’ll take one of us with him.” Since Madison called him Frankenstein after he brought Viktor back from the dead the name had stuck. With her luck he’s going to figure out who gave him that name and she just hoped he didn’t come looking for her with his sword in hand.

  “That must be fun,” Madison said dryly.

  Rachael shrugged. “Dr. Paulson gets to go this month.”

  “How does he choose who goes with him?” Please let him not want her to accompany him. Ever.

  Rachel pulled a face. “He pointed at Dr. Paulson and said, you human, come with me. Dr. Paulson now faces a day in hell being criticized and told how useless his doctoring skills are.”

  Madison had to laugh, she could imagine the scene. “We’ll talk about it later, I’ve got to run,” she said and ran.

  She treated a burn, set a broken arm, and listened to a long list of complaints from patients she had no idea how to help without the necessary drugs and equipment. She broke out in a cold sweat and could barely hide her fear from them. She managed, but without the extra supplies from the Zyrgins, she would’ve been in trouble. She gripped the medication she had to give to her patient so hard the plastic bottle cracked. She’d save them all, even if she had to steal Viglar’s gadget.

  To make matters worse, every time she made a mistake, every time she had to explain to a patient that they didn’t have the necessary resources to help them, the alien was there. Fixing everything with his blasted gadget that he refused to share.

  She went to do her painting shift and found Rachel getting ready to leave. “Since when do we have shelters,” Madison asked her friend. It’d been nagging at her ever since Rachel told her about Frankenstein’s visits to the shelters. She knew of shelters for abused women and homeless people from history lessons of the golden age, but, as far as she knew, there were none left.

  Rachel swung her backpack over her shoulders and frowned at Madison. “You know, I never thought about that. Must be some rich person who started it.”

  “Do you think it could be the aliens that built a shelter?”

  It would contradict everything she knew about their savage natures. She didn’t want them to do things like that. It would make them harder to hate, and they had to be hated for invading her world and daring to try and rule humans. Building the hospital and using his skills to save the patients already humanized Viglar to a dangerous degree. She could never forget that they might have killed Rory.

  Rachel frowned. “I doubt it. He might be softer on women than men, but he’s still pretty tough on us. If the other aliens are like him, there’s no way they built a shelter for human women.”

  Madison started to paint. Never in her life had she hated anything as much as the acrid smell of paint and the feel of a paint brush in her aching hand. Most nights she got home to find the blisters on her hand bleeding. Some nights she was too tired to bother with it and just fell into bed. “I suppose you’re right.” Still it niggled at the back of her mind. An inconsistency that she didn’t like.

  “Human, you are talking and not working.”

  Rachel grabbed her backpack. “I am off duty.” With that she ran for the door.

  Madison glared after her. “Traitor,” she shouted after her and turned to face the alien that had never even bothered to ask her name.

  Chapter 6

  Madison faced the pitiless invader that seemed determined to work her into an early grave, the paintbrush in her hand feeling as if it was made of lead. He loomed over her and, around them, everyone went quiet.

  She wouldn’t allow him to intimidate her. Not unless he had a sword in his hand. “I was only chatting with her a few moments. I assume that is allowed.” Around her everyone stilled and watched them. Only Clarkson ever stood up to him and after almost being choked to death he’d taken to shouting his demands from a distance.

  He put his hand on the back of her neck and turned her to face the wall. Shivers went down her spine, spiraling outward from where his hand touched the back of her head. “No, it is not. You will paint now.”

  Aware that he stood with his feet planted and his arms crossed over his chest watching her, she gripped the brush tighter and winced when her blisters burned.

  She rolled her shoulders and started painting. “I wish we could still take warm baths like they used to do in the golden age with unlimited water supply. It could really make my life better right now,” she said to no one in particular, not caring that Frankenstein still stood ov
er her. Viglar made his silver gadget appear and moved it up and down the length of her body.

  Madison gave him a defiant glare over her shoulder. “Maybe the invaders plan to work us to death.”

  “The superior Zyrgin warriors who rule earth will not tolerate laziness.”

  Madison stared at him but there was no hint of a smile on his face. Either he had a wonderful dry humor or he was so literal he didn’t know he had a dry sense of humor.

  He left and she painted until she thought her arms would fall off.

  Hours later, she put down her cleaned brush and carefully grabbed her backpack with her sore hands. “Well, I’m off. Not even Frankenstein can make me work more today.” She turned and would’ve bounced off the green chest in her way if he hadn’t grabbed her arms and steadied her. “Stalking me, alien?”

  ***

  Viglar looked down at the woman who didn’t seem to fear him quite as much as the other humans who’d stopped painting to watch them. He wanted to claim her, to stop getting to know her like Natalie suggested. She pasted a smile on her face and stepped around him. “Good night, Viglar.”

  “You will come with me.”

  She sighed, a loud irritated sound, and followed him. Her footsteps dragged the way Alissa’s did when Natalie told her it was bath time. She muttered under her breath, probably thinking he couldn’t hear her calling him a Frankenstein. He’d found a copy of the file she referred to and didn’t see the connection. He couldn’t see the logic in stitching dead people together. He didn’t look like the doctor or his creation either. He was from a strong warrior line and many had remarked on his superior visage. The name she chose to call him did not make sense, no matter how much he thought about it.

  He took her to his office and beyond to the quarters he’d adapted for the time he spent building the hospital and finding the virus.