The Dark Path of Romance: Find the aliens. Steal their toys. Save the world. Mostly, steal their toys (Kim and Angel Book 2)

by J. Judkins

  “Oh.” Angel looked to the imperiled alien in question. The cable dropped another notch, as evidenced by another ear-piercing shriek. “That’s bad.”

  “Yeah,” Kim confirmed. “That’s bad.”

  “Are you certain of this?”

  “It’s a fairly common science fiction idea. Personally, I’m thinking they’re fooling themselves. What they’re actually doing is giving a new clone an inheritance, history, and a place to live. I don’t get why anyone would think it’s the path to immortality.”

  Angel was shaking her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Why not?” Kim asked. “I think you’d agree if you played any of the Borderlands games and knew about the New-U stations. After all, what’s stopping them from dumping a person’s personality into more than one clone? Hard for Number One to argue he’s the original reborn after seeing Number Two crawling out of the clone vats.”

  “Kim . . .”

  “And what happens if the original survives the so-called transfer process and comes walking through the door? He’s going to want his stuff back! Can you imagine? That would be awkward for everyone!”

  “No,” Angel said between closed eyes and gritted teeth. “Not about that. Are you certain this applies to Naomi?”

  “Oh.” Kim put a finger to her chin. “Now that you mention it, I suppose it wouldn’t. Their bosses don’t even want them aware they’re controlling their own bodies.”

  “Focus, Kim! Is Naomi about to die or not?”

  “Unless something changes really quickly, then yes, Naomi is definitely going to die.” Kim placed her hands on her hips. “And whose fault would that be? I’ll give you a hint: I’m looking at her right now.”

  Angel threw her hands in the air. “Why do you persist in blaming me? Why not blame the monster?”

  “Because the monster . . .”

  There was another shriek.

  “You know, we really should be rescuing Naomi,” Kim said. “How is she supposed to escape?”

  Angel touched a finger to the side of her head in her “thoughtful” pose. “I have a solution in mind. But if we give it away, Naomi won’t be getting full experience points for escaping.”

  “I seriously doubt Naomi’s worried about not getting full experience points.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Naomi couldn’t tear her eyes away from the blackish, murky pool of acid directly below her. She kept her legs pulled to her chest. If she allowed them to dangle, they probably wouldn’t touch the acid, but she wasn’t about to take the chance.

  And I was just getting used to having my own body, too. Perma-death sucks.

  “I think I know what we need to do,” Melanie called out to her from her cell.

  Naomi didn’t raise her eyes. “If you’ve got a plan, you’d better hurry.”

  Melanie’s hands were clenching and unclenching at her sides. “Do you remember what Angel said to you? About love being the answer?”

  “Summarize, please. Even better, skip to the end.”

  “Yeah, I guess vague hints aren’t going to work. For a minute, I forgot who I was talking to.”

  “Yes,” Naomi snapped. “Love. Got it. Love is the answer. Excellent. Brilliant strategy, Melanie! Thank you for telling me! Now that we’ve settled that, any ideas for getting me down?”

  “Okay. Here it is.” Melanie let out a breath. “You need to tell me you love me.”

  Naomi gave Melanie her best withering glare. “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah. Long talk with Kim. Apparently, Angel’s got a really twisted and borderline fatal sense of romance.”

  Naomi drew in an unnecessary breath, then let it out slowly. “I am so utterly sick and tired of being told love is the solution. If my arms weren’t tied down, I’d be throwing them up in the air in frustration. How is love supposed to help me? I’m being lowered into a vat of acid! Into a vat! Of acid!”

  “You need to . . .”

  “A vat of acid!” Naomi cried.

  “Listen to me! You need to tell me you love me, or at least care about me, and they’ll let you go!”

  “I don’t want to be let go! I’m hanging! Over a vat! Of acid!”

  In their cell, Angel and Kim both competed for space at the side closest to Naomi. “Yes, these are your final moments,” Angel called. “You are about to die. Melanie is important to you, isn’t she? Isn’t there anything you’d like to say to her while you still have the chance?”

  Naomi’s eyes met Melanie’s as she considered Angel’s words.

  “Yes,” Naomi admitted. “I do have something I’d like to tell her. There are certain words I’ve been wanting to share. But I’ve been holding them back.” She hung her head. “It was never the right time.”

  “Now is the time,” Angel urged.

  “Perhaps you’re right.” She sighed again. “Melanie?”

  Melanie’s eyes were wide. “Yes?”

  “This is what I truly feel. Since that terrible moment I thought I’d lost you, there’s something I’ve been longing to tell you before it’s too late.”

  Naomi sucked in a breath. “This is all your fault!” she screamed. “All of it! If I hadn’t brought you with me, none of this would have happened!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Kim edged Angel out of the way. “You brought Melanie to the warehouse last Saturday night because you said you needed a beautiful hostage. You told us she was the most beautiful woman you could find. Then you brought her here, and from the way she’s dressed, she was expecting to be taken on a romantic date, not dragged all over the city. She must be in love with you, because no one else would be stupid enough to put up with you!”

  “If I hadn’t charged in to rescue her, none of this would have happened! I never would have been captured!”

  “What?” Melanie gasped. “You did? Why? I told you to stay away! Why would you do that?”

  “Because I wasn’t thinking! Because you were in danger! Because I was stupid!”

  “No, you tried to rescue her because you care about her, you stupid idiot!” Kim yelled.

  “You want the truth? I’ll give you the truth.” Naomi closed her eyes. “Everything about Melanie is beautiful. Everything. I’ve always been attracted to her. Since forever.” She hung her head in sorrow. “But Melanie doesn’t care about me at all!” she wailed.

  “What!” Melanie gasped. “How can you say that?”

  “It’s true,” Naomi sobbed.

  “I’ve been doing everything I can to get you to notice me!”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “When was this?”

  “Since the beginning!”

  “Oh, please!” Naomi shot back. “I would have noticed if you’d have given me some sort of sign!”

  “How much more blatant a sign do you want? Maybe an ‘I love you’ sign, with big, flashing neon letters? Would that be good enough?”

  “It would help!”

  Naomi’s entire body jerked as the cable dropped. “No! This isn’t fair! All I ever wanted since forever a few hours ago was to find that specific restaurant by the lake. I wanted a chance to have a nice romantic dinner with you, to experience what it would be like to spend hours sleeping with you at the motel. Now I’ll never be able to!”

  “She’s definitely one of you, Angel,” Kim remarked.

  “Everyone, shut up!” Melanie yelled. “Naomi, would you please focus for a minute?”

  Naomi held her feet up just a little bit higher. “I’ve never slept with anyone before in my life. It would have been a brand new experience. I want to try doing it with you.”

  “I think you’ll find it to be very enjoyable,” Angel supplied.

  “Focus, Naomi,” Melanie said. “Didn’t you hear me? I just told you that I loved you.”

  “Loved?” Naomi gasped. “Loved, as in past tense?”

  “No! I love you, as in, I love you! I love you, you stupid idiot! Dear God, what the hell’s the matter with you?”

 
“Maybe if you’d stop insulting me,” Naomi said darkly, but then she did a double take. “You love me?”

  “Yes!”

  “Really?”

  “Yes!”

  “You’re not just saying that?”

  Silence reigned.

  “Melanie? I can’t see!” Naomi stretched in an attempt to peer over the rim of the vat, but the angle was wrong. “Please don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind!”

  “No. I haven’t changed my mind. I was busy pulling my hair out!”

  “Don’t do that,” Naomi gasped anew. “I love your hair! I love your body, and your personality, and everything about you!”

  “You do?” came Melanie's tentative answer.

  “Yes!”

  “Okay, Angel.” Kim clapped her hands. “You’ve done it. Mission accomplished. Everyone loves each other. You can let Naomi go now.”

  “Not literally, please,” Melanie put in.

  “Yes,” Kim agreed. “Not literally.”

  “Is there anything else I should be doing?” Naomi called. “Because I’m getting tired of this!”

  “Try swinging toward the far side and grabbing hold of the edge with your legs,” Angel suggested. “You should be able to hook a foot under the catwalk’s safety railing. The cable will eventually lower into the acid. After it dissolves, you’ll be free to pull yourself up and out.”

  Naomi blinked.

  Very tentatively, she allowed her legs to dangle. There was still a good distance from the pool itself. Encouraged, she started to swing.

  “That’s really acid?” Melanie asked.

  Naomi could hear Angel’s matter-of-fact reply. “Why wouldn’t it be acid? The vat even says ‘acid’ on the side.”

  “You’re insane,” Melanie said. “Both of you are completely insane.”

  “There seems to be a consensus on that,” Angel agreed.

  Naomi was starting to build up a decent amount of momentum when Angel appeared beyond the vat’s edge. She stretched out her hand. Naomi swung closer, then closer still. The instant Naomi’s feet came within range, Angel seized her right ankle and pulled her in as tightly as the steel cable would allow. It was enough to keep her in place.

  There was another click. The cable slackened. Angel pulled her that much closer.

  “Were you the one responsible for all this?” Naomi asked.

  “Of course not,” Angel said without blinking. “That was the monster.”

  Seeing as she was literally—as well as figuratively—in no position to argue, Naomi decided to let it go.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The cable slackened once more, and Angel pulled Naomi over the side. She wasted no time unfastening her restraints before tossing them into the vat. They faded into the murky depths and were quickly lost to sight.

  Naomi followed her rescuer down the spiraling stairs to the ground floor. Kim and Melanie had also been freed, she noted, but her minions remained locked in their cells. “How did you manage to free yourselves?”

  “The monster didn’t search me,” Angel said. “I picked the lock.”

  The explanation made as much sense as anything else. “I see.”

  “Now that we’re friends, I have a request.” Angel rubbed her hands together. “I’d appreciate it if you could tell us the specifics of what your people have planned.”

  “Oh, no need for explanations,” Kim said with a smirk. “I’ve already figured it out.”

  Naomi attempted to ignore them both, but her efforts were met with limited success. Kim and Angel seemed intent on making their points directly in front of wherever she chose to stand.

  “So, if you could tell us?” Angel reiterated, as if Kim hadn’t spoken.

  “I said, I’ve already figured it out,” Kim repeated, this time a little more forcefully. “The aliens want to use their memory technology in order to—”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Keith cried. Or maybe it was Roy, or Randy. Naomi always got them mixed up. One of the lesser ones, at any rate. “Free us before the monster comes back!”

  “Free us!”

  Others added to the chorus, shaking the bars of their prison. “Free us!”

  “I don’t want to die!”

  “Let us go!”

  Naomi closed her eyes and added minions to her ignore list. If I still had my blaster, they wouldn’t be making demands.

  “Or if you’d prefer to grant me computer access?” Angel’s question was noticeably louder. Whether this was done to drown out the cacophonous voices or because Naomi still hadn’t acknowledged her, she couldn’t say. “This will be necessary to free you from the system.”

  Kim placed her hands on her hips. “Angel, are you listening to me?”

  The prisoners shook their bars with greater enthusiasm. “Are you listening to us?”

  “Will all of you shut up for a moment?” Naomi cried. “I need to think!”

  The clamoring and rattling of bars mercifully stopped.

  Naomi turned to Angel. “Thank you for freeing me. But if we’re friends, as you claim, why haven’t you freed my minions?”

  “Are we in agreement? Are you our friend now?”

  Naomi looked away. How could she explain?

  “Before I answer, I think you should know the full story.” Naomi looked sidelong at Kim. “Your friend was mostly correct.”

  Angel’s eyes widened. “She was?”

  “Don’t act so surprised,” Kim admonished before turning her glare upon Naomi. “What do you mean, mostly? What’s wrong with my theory?”

  “I won’t deny that Kim may have divined the absolute basics of our plan, but it isn’t anything as dramatic as taking over the Earth for some nefarious purpose.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “First contact,” Naomi said.

  “Oh, please,” Kim scoffed. “I saw the graves. A first contact is supposed to be peaceful. Your supposed first contact kills thousands.”

  Naomi grimaced. “Our first contact kills thousands of people, but only because that’s a plausible scenario humanity would accept.”

  Kim gave a reluctant nod. “Go on.”

  “As I was saying, you were mostly correct. After the surrender, we are discovered to be a benevolent and peaceful people. Humanity wouldn’t suffer under new management. There’d be no need for career politicians of dubious talent, or violent warlords, or dictators holding on to scraps of power at the expense of their own people. We’d end world hunger, cure cancer, and set about doing everything humanity would expect from their new alien benefactors.

  “History is a series of lies agreed upon. Through the use of our ‘memory technology,’ as you call it, Earth’s entire population would skip over a first generation’s unproductive, and frankly unnecessary, xenophobia and resistance to change. They would awaken years into their own future, long after they’d settled their past, petty differences. They’d remember how they’d felt during the transition, but only as an old memory. The only casualties would be works of fiction, occasionally supplemented by recently dead to add physical credibility.

  “Once fully accepted by the populace, Earth would be welcomed into an ever growing community of planets which currently spans three percent of the known galaxy.”

  “I see,” Angel nodded. “Now that we’ve become friends, I trust you will join us in stopping this?”

  Kim held up a hand. “Hold on a second, Angel. Stop it? Let’s not be hasty. That sounds like a sweet deal!”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Kim had never been the confident and assertive type when crowds were involved, but arguing the pros and cons of a possible alien takeover did wonders for her courage. “Now, hear me out. None of you are thinking long-term. You need to consider all the possibilities.”

  “Do you know what surprises me?” Angel addressed her question to the ceiling. “It surprises me that I’m not surprised.”

  Melanie stood sputtering in indignation. “You’d hand over the plane
t to them?”

  Kim stood her ground. “I’m sure we can all agree that the planet needs to be united eventually, right? Why not do it under beneficial alien rule?”

  “The only reason you’re saying that is because you’re interested in their technology,” Melanie shot back.

  “Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be? What’s wrong with snapping up all the alien toys I can find?”

  Melanie’s hands clenched into fists. “We need to stop them!”

  “Amazing new technology aside, what have you got against world peace? You’d rather keep rolling the dice for the next hundred years until we figure out how to travel faster than light ourselves, hoping some religious nut job who thinks suicide and mass murder is a surefire ticket to Heaven won’t decide to start World War III and ruin it for the rest of us? We’ve been lucky so far! Humanity can’t afford to keep all its eggs in one basket. We need to expand the hell off this planet, and I say the sooner, the better!”

  Melanie pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  “If you’d read any science fiction at all, you’d agree with me.”

  “And what gives you the impression the aliens would be willing to share any of their technology?”

  Kim stopped to think about this. They’d keep it for themselves? All of it?

  Her hands clenched into fists. “We need to stop them!”

  “Then you’d be stopping me,” Naomi said.

  Melanie, Kim, and Angel turned to stare at her.

  “It’s regrettable, but I don’t see any other options,” Naomi said with a sigh. “Until recently, I’d been assuming Angel had discovered a way to rouse herself and escape confinement. I now know this path isn’t available to me.” She heaved a second sigh to reiterate her point. “I suppose I’ll stay a supervillain, fulfill my destiny, and subvert your people under my oppressive rule.”

  “You can’t suppose you’ll be a supervillain,” Kim cried in exasperation. “It takes planning, dedication, and—”

  “I’ll handle this.” Melanie took Naomi’s arm. “Let me talk to her.”

  “Don’t go too far,” Angel called after them. “We still need to capture the monster. And Kim, could you please refrain from advising Naomi on how to be a proper villain? That’s counterproductive!”