by Kit Tunstall
It was a strange turn of events, but as they held hands and stared into each other’s eyes, her heart was pounding in her ears, and a low thrum of desire throbbed through her. For a moment, it threatened to overwhelm her and rob her senses, urging her to leap on the alien and satisfy the surge of lust consuming her.
Remembering her friends, along with all the other women facing an unknown fate, allowed her to regain control and release his hand. “Be careful, Ryland Breese.”
He inclined his head in that respectful fashion of his. “And you, Jada Washington. I shall return to you when I have more information.”
She nodded and walked him to the door, this time unlocking it the old-fashioned way before locking it behind him. It might not keep out an alien inquisitor, but it would keep out all other manner of criminals and lowlifes plundering the city and perhaps protect her if she became the next target of the alien harvesters.
To her knowledge, there were four cases of Kaiser’s Syndrome in the entire state of New York, and three of the women, besides her, lived in the city. The third woman was not a member of the forum, and Jada didn’t even know her name. She’d simply seen her at the specialist’s office, and they had briefly discussed their diagnoses, but that had been years ago.
The woman had been frail at the time, with dry straw-blonde hair barely touching her neck, and her withered body trapped in a wheelchair. At the time, Jada hadn’t even set up her forum yet, and though the conversation they had shared had been informative, part of her had shied away from ever seeing the woman again. At that time, she had been too sharp a predictor of Jada’s own future that awaited.
Now, she regretted that she hadn’t exchanged some sort of contact information with the woman, and had no idea how to begin tracking her down, unless she went through her doctor’s office’s electronic records. That felt like a gross invasion of privacy, but it seemed even worse to leave the unidentified woman vulnerable to alien hunters without trying to track her down or warn her. Jada wasn’t even sure how she would begin to convince the other woman to take the threat seriously, but she had to at least look for her.
With that thought in mind, she started with the medical records database for her doctor’s office. It took a long time to finesse her way through the safeguards, and she was both amused and impressed to find they had better security encryptions than the local police department.
Slowly, she was able to access the system, finally getting full permission to see all the data. She set up a search parameter to look for Kaiser’s Syndrome, expecting to get one hit.
The woman she was looking for had been in fairly bad shape eight years ago, so she might have already passed away, but Jada hoped her doctor had converted his old records into electronic records. If so, there should at least be a mention of his former patient, who could still be his current patient.
To her surprise, there were two results for her search for Kaiser’s Syndrome. The first file belonged to a Mary Catherine Jones, and she had recently seen Dr. Evans. Jada used her newly restored hands, no longer concerned about pulls and sprains from a simple task like typing or writing, to copy and paste Mary Catherine’s contact information onto the computer’s notepad. She didn’t probe any deeper into the medical records than was necessary to confirm Mary Catherine was probably the person she was looking for.
Curious, she opened the second result, and concern flooded her as she read the case file. It was from a database for AmbaCorp, a medical research group that was connected with the same hospital as her doctor’s practice, though located in a different building on the other side of the city. Ostensibly, the study was calling for participants with Kaiser’s Syndrome to test an investigational medication meant to reduce excess joint elasticity. Considering Kaiser’s Syndrome was barely a blip on the medical radar, it seemed unlikely that a study would be underway to test joint effects, when it was one of the milder side effects of Kaiser’s Syndrome.
She dug deeper, looking at the address of the medical research building in question. To her surprise, it wasn’t simply an office in the building, but rather took up an entire three-story office building on the outskirts of Brooklyn. Why would a medical research company need such a large facility?
She knew most medical research businesses kept at least a superficial layer between themselves and the manufacturers of the drugs they were testing. They were generally third-party contractors hired to carry out the tests designed by pharmaceutical companies, and she wasn’t highly knowledgeable about it, but she’d never heard of people going directly to a lab facility where actual experiments were concurrently conducted in order to participate in a medical study—especially not for a joint medicine.
She made several notes on the notepad document as she waited for Ryland’s return, her suspicions growing. Further probing revealed the business was hooked up to public utilities, but had very low power usage compared to most businesses of its size. It took her less than an hour to determine the average usage, and the company was coming nowhere near it.
That was a puzzling contradiction, because Ryland had mentioned specifically that any storage facility would likely require a great deal of electricity. Still, there was enough about the business to be suspicious, and she was impatient for Ryland’s return.
As the day dwindled into evening, she looked up when light emanated from her door, and the locks popped open in quick succession. A moment later, the door opened to reveal the alien, and she grinned at him. “You could have rung the bell like normal people, and I would’ve opened the door for you.”
He arched his brow ridge. “I’m not a normal people, am I? Besides, I didn’t want to alarm you with an unknown presence, so I assumed it would be better to open the door myself.”
“I could have been indecent. You might have caught me in a compromising position.”
His brow ridge furrowed. “What sort of compromising position?”
She giggled for a moment before the sound choked off. Was she flirting with him? How did one even flirt with an alien who wasn’t of one’s species? Besides, he probably wouldn’t be interested in her.
She waved a hand, hoping to dismiss the whole subject, as something prickled in the back of her mind. She turned to the page she had printed out, about to go over it with him, when the realization flooded her mind.
She might be highly desirable to this alien, because she was a genetic match that could carry his offspring. Even if he wanted nothing more than babies from her, he was likely to be interested and protective. She could use that to her advantage.
She scowled at the thought, shoving it away. She had no intention of using Ryland for anything, whether it be sexual relief or something more mundane. She certainly wasn’t going to trick or seduce him into breaking her eight-year dry spell, no matter how much she craved his touch.
It had to be simple proximity. She hadn’t been near a man who wasn’t a doctor or caregiver in the last seven years, since Barry had bailed. She was in the best health of her life, and it was only normal for her libido to be awake and raring to go after all that time. Any man would have elicited the same response, and he wasn’t even a man. He was an alien, for goodness sake. What was she thinking?
“I had some luck, Jada.”
Forcing her thoughts to turn from the carnal and back to the business at hand, she grasped the page of notes and turned to face him. “So did I, but tell me what you found first please?”
“New York is full of nooks and crannies, and there are more places to hide a large-scale operation like Dr. Ha might be undertaking than I would have guessed in a city of this geographic size and so filled with a large populace.”
She nodded. “New York’s a good place to hide secrets, I guess.”
“However, I did discover a cargo plane landed at a private airstrip near JFK two weeks ago. Tracing the origins, the same plane has stopped everywhere there have been disappearances, and in the same order as I predict Ha has progressed. Unfortunately, there was no one at the plane
or the airfield when I went to investigate, but I have a link, so perhaps I can track down someone in the company and learn more. At least now we know how he’s flying them around, so that’s progress.”
“That’s good news. I found something too.” She handed him the page. “You can read English, right?”
“My translator can rapidly translate it for me. I don’t actually speak, read, or write English, but I doubt you can tell the difference or detect the slight delay from the translator changing my words to the right form for you.”
“Oh, okay. Anyway, I knew there was at least one other woman with Kaiser’s Syndrome in the city. I set out to track her down, since we share a doctor. In the process, I discovered she’s still alive, and our doctor recommended her for a study for a medication that will reduce overextension of the joints in Kaiser’s patients. She’s been enrolled, and when she went to the program four days ago, she hasn’t been seen since.
“There have been no hits on her credit card or debit card, and from what I could tell from her landline, she’s had a few incoming phone calls, but has placed no outgoing calls. Most of the calls last less than a minute, suggesting the caller is leaving a message.
“I also checked delivery records for restaurants nearby, assuming she has the same culinary weaknesses of the rest of us, and discovered she’s a fan of Thai food, ordering it at least twice a week, but nothing at all in the last four days.”
“This is Mary Catherine Jones of whom you speak?” At her nod, his gaze moved lower down the page. “And you suspect the study is a front for Dr. Ha to acquire Kaiser’s patients?”
She lifted a shoulder. “It makes sense, except for electricity usage. It’s too low for a business that size, even if they’re doing nothing more than running conference rooms and doing basic labs studies—which if that’s all they’re doing, why do they need a fifteen thousand square-feet facility with three floors?”
Ryland inclined his head. “It’s a very large space for one business of that type, but would provide ideal quarters if you’re trying to hold four hundred women, and you needed a floor for medical research, another for housing prisoners, and a third to act as the front to lure in more patients. It’s also unlikely he would rely on a human power source to keep the facility running. Dazon technology is more efficient and highly portable.”
“I was thinking tomorrow I should go check it out.”
Ryland stiffened. “What?”
She tilted her head. “It makes perfect sense. I have Kaiser’s Syndrome, so it gives me a good reason to snoop around a bit. I don’t have to commit to joining their study, but I can see the layout and try to determine if it’s just a medical research facility, or if there’s something more going on.”
Ryland crossed his arms over his chest, and his fierce scowl was hot enough to melt off the top layer of her skin. “Absolutely not. Do you know how dangerous that will be?”
She nodded. “I’m aware, but it’ll be much easier for me to get in than it would be for you. I actually have the disease.”
He shook his head again. “I won’t risk losing you. I’ve looked too long—” He broke off, his eyes stormy, and his expression revealing nothing but stubborn resistance. “It’s out of the question.”
She shook her head at him. “You came to me for help. This is how I can do that.”
“Absolutely not,” he roared again. “I won’t lose my mate after searching so long for you, certain I would never find you.”
“You’re being unreasonable. I’m perfectly capable of…” She trailed off as his words penetrated the haze in her brain. “What are you talking about? I’m not your mate.” She shook her head. “I barely know you.”
Ryland sighed, rubbing a hand down his perfectly sculpted face in a weary gesture that was surprisingly human. “Our people have a finely developed mating instinct.”
“You mean a healthy sex drive?”
He made a sound that could have been a snort or a laugh. “Yes, I suppose we have that as well, but I mean we have an instinct inside us, one science has never fully explained, that guides us to our intended mate. In many of the men born today, the instinct is dormant, and our scientists have begun to believe we’ve evolved past it due to a lack of females to keep it active.
“Perhaps it could be due to the genetic tampering of our scientists that allow any reproduction at all as well. Whatever the cause, it’s mostly regarded as an old-fashioned or out-of-place ability. I considered it the same, until I saw your picture. I didn’t have the mating flare, but I felt something that instinctively told me I would when I saw you in person and not just from a picture.”
She frowned. “When you saw my blog, you mean?”
He hesitated before shaking his head. “No, I saw you before then. When I first suspected Dr. Ha had gone rogue to undertake his operation, I tracked down all the known Earth women with Kaiser’s Syndrome.”
He shook his head. “No, that’s not quite right. More than a dozen women had already disappeared, coinciding with his known whereabouts on his supposed hiatus, and when I realized they all had a genetic mutation that he had described as ideal for our genetics in his last reports before taking time off ‘to rest,’ I determined the location of the others.”
Confusion filled her. “Wait? Were you watching Dr. Ha before he started kidnapping women?”
Ryland nodded once. “I was assigned the duty. My superior felt it prudent, considering Dr. Ha’s publically stated leanings toward coercion and kidnapping of compatible species—especially if they were technologically inferior to us and couldn’t offer a meaningful resistance.”
She frowned at him. “So you knew all the women at risk, and you didn’t warn them?”
He hesitated again before sighing. “I wanted to, but the decision was made by the High Council that we would simply observe and intercede when the timing was right.” He scowled, and a look of disgust crept over his face. “It’s my belief there are enough people on the High Council who wanted to see Dr. Ha’s results that they deliberately dragged their feet, though that action is contrary to the decision reached by the General Council, with input offered by every Dazon.”
She softened slightly toward him. “Are you the only one assigned to this case?”
Ryland paused, nodded, and then paused again before shaking his head. “I am assigned, but I’m not authorized to act directly. I’m supposed to be observing, but when I realized they were moving into New York, I knew I had to protect you. When you posted your blog article, it gave me the perfect opening to approach you without arousing suspicion or drawing Ha’s attention if he has someone on the Council supporting his research. If Jorvak knows you’re my mate, it might make him more determined than ever to take you.”
She ignored the bit about being his mate for a moment to focus on the question burning on the tip of her tongue. “Why would that be? Does he know you personally?”
Ryland nodded. “Quite personally. We have the same genetic father, though we were grown in exo-wombs several cycles apart.”
Her mouth dropped open. “He’s your brother?”
Ryland paused, as though processing an answer. “I suppose from a human definition, he would be my half-brother, but due to our scientists’ manipulation, we’re actually more like eighty percent of our father, and only about twenty percent of the genetic material contributed by the Dazon female who mothered us. We had separate donor mothers, in an attempt to maintain genetic diversity as much as possible.”
She rubbed her brow as she tried to absorb his words, her kinky curls clinging to her hand in the process. She shoved them away with an impatient flick of her hand. “So why would he be interested because you’re involved?” She absolutely wasn’t going to utter anything about being his mate. Jada wasn’t going to indulge the delusion—or admit to herself how much she liked the idea, though it was completely implausible and ridiculous.
“Jorvak will dismiss most unscientific things, but if he knows I’ve experienced the mating f
lare when I first saw you, he’ll know you’re a close genetic match for me, so you’re likely to be for him as well. It will make the creation of offspring that much easier, and he’s likely to want to claim you for his mate, not just as another source of eggs for harvesting.”
“Oh, goodie.” She gave a sharp little laugh. “It’s strictly a genetic thing, not because you guys are blood enemies or something then?”
He shook his head. “Jorvak and I have very little communication or interface, Jada. Familial bonds are not the same in recent generations. They can’t be due to the changes in our world and the loss of females.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “I hope you aren’t planning to persuade all the Earth women to donate genetic material to raise children with that information. It all sounds so sterile, and you aren’t even really family anymore. Most women aren’t going to go for that.”
He took a step toward her, and his legs were so long that the single step swallowed most of the space remaining between them. “Then perhaps you will tell me what most Earth women would go for, Jada?”
It was an innocuous question, but the smoky tint to his voice rendered it something altogether different. Her nipples hardened against the fabric of her oversized dress, and she struggled for a moment to draw in a deep breath as his physical proximity struck her.
“Earth women want love. They’ll want to be cherished and have an equal partnership, to know the union is more than just some sort of reproductive act. They’re also going to want to be involved with raising their offspring. Most women, and men for that matter, are hardwired to care for our young. You aren’t going to find many women who will voluntarily hand over their eggs and not care about the outcome, or the child that could result.
“I don’t know what your people have planned, but if you really want this to be a consensual arrangement, you’re going to have to change your presentation and offer the women of Earth something more than a cold, scientific contract.”