by L. M. Moore
I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I couldn’t believe that Ben established this law even though I had the proof in my own mind. The Ben that I knew couldn’t do this; he was incapable of genocide. Or maybe I didn’t know him. Maybe he was different when he established the law. He must have seen the error of his ways. Somehow, he’d changed through the years or Kye wouldn’t have been produced.
I tried to recall how Ben expressed himself to Kye and I could remember how kind he was to her. I knew he loved her. I could feel it inside of me, but I could also feel a deep sadness. Ben knew she was killing Danel.
Then Ben’s memories pushed to the front of my mind. It was only a second. No, it was less than a second but it was gut-wrenching. I could see the companions entering the huge chamber and then it was on. They all felt it; the void. The companions were gone.
I didn’t know what my expression revealed but Danel started talking even faster in a defensive tone. It took me a few seconds to shake off Ben’s memories to listen. The images faded quickly.
“I was following orders, we all were. We are not proud of ourselves and what we did was self-serving and vicious. I am aware of this. But many voted against it. Try to understand the tragic situations that would have arose if we left them in cryo stasis. After enough time, the elders would retrieve their companions possibly by force. They then would have no other choice but to flee topside. You didn’t even exist the last time we had problems with the humans. It would’ve been sheer chaos for your kind and ours,” he said.
I had no response except a rigid frown and I looked around the room wondering if I’d misjudged the entire Tanjennian race or just Danel and Ben. I couldn’t imagine any Tanjennian doing anything by force other than Danel. And of course I had to notice that he said, “many voted against it,” not I voted against it.
“But he let you make Kye? Why didn’t you tell him about the others then?” I said.
He paused again and took a deep breath.
“When he found out about Kye, he almost had her terminated. I begged him not too. So, we agreed to keep her a secret. Everyone on this station agreed. Kye has never been to another station without the foundation, without the contacts. She always made contact as a human covert.”
I wondered why I hadn’t made this connection before. There were thousands of Tanjennians on Earth and only twenty-two on this huge station. And none ever visited until I survived merging with Ben.
Danel shifted his weight to his left side and he started to radiate more light under his skin. He was nervous.
“Only you possess the capabilities of giving us another chance. You could charge their cores; the ones we’ve hidden,” Danel said.
I knew it coming when he said they hidden twenty-five of them. That’s what he wanted. He wanted me to charge the rest. There was a hint of desperation in his voice. Danel then brushed up against me emotionally and I felt despair, guilt and pain. He wasn’t holding anything back today; he was more than desperate. And for once, I was actually more pissed at Ben, than Danel.
Yet, nothing could change the past. This was two hundred years ago and humans had done so much worse hadn’t they? I knew what he wanted, what they all wanted. I wasn’t going to judge them for something that happened two hundred years ago. At least, I was trying not to. If I was Tanjennian and my race was dwindling before my eyes, I would ask the same.
“And how does the rest of the station feel about this?” I said.
“Search their feelings, they are all on board but only because we told them how you charged Kye’s core completely. Of course, if you can’t charge another they would be put back into stasis,” he said.
I didn’t know if I wanted to put myself on the line for the others and everyone could see it on my face. I sensed a fleeting moment of sadness from Kye. I could only guess it was because she was hoping she would not be the only hybrid soon.
“And you’re certain that Kye is completely charged? I’ll never have to charge her again?” I said.
“Completely,” Danel said.
“We can make sure you’re not in any pain this time,” Collin said. He then lightly brushed me with his emotions and they were caring and honest.
I’d now been touched emotionally by more Tanjennians in ten minutes than I had in the last two months.
“You shouldn’t have merged with Kye alone. We can monitor you and make sure you’re vital signs are stable.”
This helped, but I didn’t think I could just keep charging others continuously. If it drained the Elders, eventually it would drain me too.
“And if anything goes wrong, Kye can actually pull them out of you. Her capabilities of manipulating her own mass is not limited to just herself. She can change the mass of other companions when she touches them,” Danel added.
His statement wasn’t reassuring. It was unnerving. I’m sure Aaron was fascinated but I still thought of Kye as human. I wondered how he could be so sure when Kye had never been around another hybrid companion. I looked at her and her expression only confirmed my thoughts. Her face was blank. There was no encouraging smile. She didn’t really know.
“What makes you think I can charge that many? Why are you so certain it wouldn’t kill me?”
“Remember when we discussed your DNA when you absorbed Ben?” Collin said.
I nodded my head.
“Well, we’ve been doing some research and you truly have some unique chromosomes, but they’re not all ours. So far we haven’t found the same in any other humans either but we have five thousand years of samples to test. We’ve only gone through a few hundred. This could be a common human mutation and your core has no signs of depletion from charging Kye.”
Yes, I was some kind of mutant. We’d already established this. It was confirmed by my very existence. But they were guessing, even I could see that. They didn’t really know. How could they? Just because I charged Kye, didn’t mean I could charge twenty-five more. I studied Kye for a moment. Her eyes were full of hope and longing. I squeezed her tiny hand and she squeezed back. She gave me a loving smile and she looked so alive, so beautiful. Her glowing eyes now had even more specks of gold around the edges of her irises. She was simply stunning and I drifted for a second as I gazed at her. How could they murder one hundred and ninety three companions like this one?
I didn’t hesitate to give Aaron a quick look that clearly said, I don’t know about this, and he slowly nodded. We would talk about it privately.
Danel smiled again a big metallic smile. “Just think about it, we have all the time in the world.”
A simple translation; it meant he had all the time in the world to change my mind if I said no. I thought he would be angry that Kye wasn’t bound to him anymore but he wasn’t. She would never have to charge with him again and he seemed just fine with it. Maybe he would let her go. I glanced over his neck and hands and he did appear to be healing. The glowing veins in his hands seemed brighter and the dark patches in his neck had completely disappeared. For a second, he almost looked grateful.
After Collin checked all the screens, everyone left the room but Kye. She sat on the edge of the bed just staring at me, smiling. She looked so stunning in the deep red suit and matching heels and I couldn’t sense any sadness from her at all.
“I wasn’t sure it would work,” I said.
“Neither was I.”
“You’re light seems different,” I said. I noticed the swirling illuminations under her skin were now yellows and pinks, before there were greenish blues.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had this kind of energy,” she said, stroking the back of my hand with her delicate fingers.
“Do I seem depleted to you in any way?” I had to ask and I knew she would be honest.
She reached out emotionally to me and closed her eyes. She was concentrating and pushing through me into my brain. Her emotions were open to me. She held nothing back and I felt love, joy, and relief. I became slightly aroused when she reached downward into my abdomen and she opened h
er eyes smiling and pulled her essence back. I couldn’t help but smile.
“Your core feels just like it did the first time I felt it after you merged with Ben. Do you feel any different?” She said.
“Slight headache, but other than that I feel fine.”
This was a lie. I wasn’t completely fine. Emotionally, I felt drained but I hid this from her.
She grabbed some clothes that were at the edge of the bed and put them next to me.
“Get dressed. We’ll get something to eat.” She then crossed the room and sat in a chair facing me.
I was completely naked under the sheet and I found it amusing that she wanted to watch me dress. Now, I was completely aroused. I pulled the sheet off me, got up, closed the door to the medical room and walked over to her. A gleeful little laugh escaped her. She pushed her essence through me again with longing and desire. I picked her up off the chair into my arms and kissed her hard on the mouth. She let out a sultry moan and I placed her on the bed.
“Lew, I can’t and won’t ask you to do it again; to charge another companion. It’s completely up to you.”
She said this like it was difficult to form the words, she was obviously thinking of something else. I brushed up against her again, reaching deep into her and she let out another moan. She was so small beneath me, so tiny. I tried not to put any of my weight on her.
“I just need some time to think about it,” I whispered into her ear as she gasped again. I hovered over her propping myself with one arm and undressing her with the other.
We didn’t make it to the main hall until two hours later.
After breakfast, I was left contemplating the one thing everyone wanted from me, if I could charge another one.
CHAPTER 2
STILL STUNNED FROM charging Kye’s core completely, I strolled back to my suite to check on Zero. Kye could sense that I wanted some time to myself to think and said she had other things to attend too. When I opened the door, the dog bolted toward me wagging his tail and I bent down and scooped him up. He was so tiny in my mutated hand. I could pet his entire back with just one thumb.
“I didn’t go anywhere. I’m here Z,” I said rubbing his head. I wasn’t in the suite for more than five minutes when I sensed Aaron approaching. I went to the door and opened it just as he was about to knock. He stepped back for a second thinking I was leaving but I just pulled the door open farther to let him in.
“You can link with me?” A curious smile appeared on his face, as he walked in.
I guess I never told him that I could sense humans.
“Actually, I felt you the night I woke up after I absorbed Ben.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like there’s an emotional signature within everyone I know. It’s odd too because I linked with a stranger across the hall that same night and there was no signature because I didn’t know him. Then I felt you next door and I just knew it was you. With the stranger, I could feel what he was feeling. I think I actually startled him, but I only knew who he wasn’t. I think knowing who you’re linked too is made the first time you physically meet,” I said.
“Interesting. How you doing?”
“Honestly? When Kye merged with me, it was almost unbearable. For Kye..yes, I’d do it again. But everyone just assumes that I’m gonna revive all these hybrids. I was willing to risk my life for Kye, not for every hybrid they made. But at the same time, I do feel different,” I said, putting the dog down.
“How?”
“I can’t explain it,” I said.
“Do you feel sick?”
“No, not like that. I feel great.”
Aaron then smiled at me. Yes, I’d just showed concern because I felt physically better now than before I’d charged Kye. And it did actually sound ridiculous.
“That could be emotional relief,” he said.
“It’s not emotional. I mean, I am relieved but it’s something physical too.”
“We scanned your entire body a hundred times when you were unconscious. There’s no change. I studied each scan myself,” Aaron said.
I couldn’t pinpoint what was different but I knew in my gut something had changed. Aaron’s smile faded and he started rubbing his chin. The gears were turning.
“You know, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to charge them. It could kill you, there are no guarantees.”
I was expecting that spontaneous side of him to show but there was only concern. And the phrase, “it could kill you,” lingered.
“I don’t think that I survived a merge with Ben, for nothing. I have to believe that there was a purpose for it even if I don’t like it.”
“You don’t think it was a fluke in your DNA, a mutation, do you?”
“No, I never have,” I said.
“Look, I understand that you spent most of your human life as a Seattle cop and that gave you a sense of purpose, but you are not a Tanjennian, you just look like one. And I know Ben’s memories can cloud this fact. You owe them nothing,” he said.
I couldn’t believe he was actually saying this. This kid, who dragged me to the desert and dragged me down here to this station was now telling me, “you owe them nothing.”
“You know that’s actually funny to hear it from you. I thought you’d be the first to agree with this. And I know you like your scientific explanations but I don’t need one,” I said.
“You see, that’s the problem. There is no explanation as of right now, so I can’t predict what can happen. I know you can feel Ben inside of you, but you’re not Ben. They have technologies and medical capabilities that they do not share with humans, things that would really help us. And I know that trying to save others makes you feel like you’re saving your mother but this won’t save her. It’s too late for that.”
That last sentence stung a little, but there was no denying it. I didn’t realize that he knew. Then it was clear he must have always known, that would explain why he never asked about her, because he already had the information.
“You always knew didn’t you?”
“I knew the first day we met. You brought me that laptop and I wanted to throw it in a trashcan and light it on fire because I thought you were like the cops that locked me up. But before I did, I researched you and I found out you were nothing like them.”
“Lucky for me,” I said.
“Lucky for your computer,” he said smiling.
Since he already knew everything about me, I felt justified in asking him a few questions.
“Why were you in prison?”
I needed to know that he hadn’t done something truly terrible. And this fact had been etching at the back of my mind for the last three months. He was silent for a moment so I started making some coffee. He sighed like he didn’t want to have this discussion and sat down at the table. I couldn’t help but laugh under my breath at his bright red hair.
“Nice hair, you look like you’re on fire.”
“I do whatever Jessica likes and she likes it,” he said running his hands through it.
When the coffee was finished, I poured us both a cup and sat down. He just stared at the coffee. This was the first time he actually looked his age. And he looked like things were weighing on him. I’d forgotten for a moment how large his IQ was. He was just some twenty-year-old kid. At least, when he was silent, he was.
“Well?” I said.
“When I was sixteen, my photo was accidently put on the FBI’s most wanted list because my name was very similar to a terrorist’s alias. This was hilarious to my friends, but not to me. Being the computer geek I am, I hacked into the system and added one other teenager to the list, the son of the FBI Director. Just to let them know how it felt. It didn’t take them long to find me and they imprisoned me for ten months.”
This, I wasn’t expecting. I was hoping for larceny. Not that the system, I worked for, for twenty years had failed him.
“I’m sorry.”
“You have
nothing to apologize for and I’ve gotten all the apologies I need,” he said.
“One more question. Why only ten months? That’s a serious offense.”
“Oh, well, you dig deep enough and you find dirt on everyone and I found some on the Director and I blackmailed him.”
Okay, I really didn’t want to hear the word, blackmail. However, I had to admit that living topside and passing for human was over. It was completely over. I was also certain that the FBI were still looking for me. And I didn’t think Aaron would ever go topside again, something just told me that he wouldn’t. The human laws just didn’t apply down here. I guess it was time I started letting them go.
“You’re focusing on the wrong issue,” he said. “Think about what I said and ask yourself if you’re willing to risk everything. Yes, Kye might be upset if you decline but think about what you’re doing.”
After he finished half a cup of coffee, he turned to leave and I had to stop him.
“Why don’t you want me to charge another hybrid?”
He turned around, smiled and shook his head a little.
“I do want you to charge another hybrid and another and another, so they can figure out how to save their race. I just wasn’t sure if you knew why you wanted too and that you had options. I want their species to continue. I actually prefer to be around Tanjennians rather than humans. Don’t you?”
All the characteristics of a twenty-year-old kid were gone and he was starting to sound like Danel. Yet, with all of the sick souls I locked up back when I was a cop, I couldn’t disagree too much.
“Have you lost your faith in the human race?” I said.
“Nope, I never had any. But I believe over time they can improve with our help.”
He was talking as if he wasn’t a part of that race anymore and I wasn’t so sure if he was. He’d been born with Tanjennian genes and I wondered how much of that had really changed him. I mustered up a little smile as he left the suite. Then I started really questioning why I was considering risking my life for a race that refused to help humans.
It didn’t take me long to find the answer. They tried to help us more than once and we turned on them, we killed them. Yes, this was thousands of years ago, but if I put myself in their shoes, it would change me too.