by Ann Gimpel
A shadow sidestepped its way out of the other's robed body. Fear pierced Corina’s throat, narrowing her airway. The figure she’d shot finally crumpled sideways into the dust, wavered and began folding in upon itself. All the while a darker splotch, opaque against the night, stood next to it, choreographing something with strange, rapid movements. What was this? Cori spun and ran for all she was worth. Her breath came fast, making white plumes in the cold night air. Panic settled in her belly like a brick. She knew if she stopped, she’d vomit.
Sudden light flared around her. She couldn’t move; feet caught mid-stride thumped to the ground and she nearly fell. The gun clutched in her hand made a clunking sound as it hit the dirt. She hadn’t opened her fingers, yet they were splayed wide. A low, keening moan tore out of her. The fear she’d felt before was nothing compared with the nightmarish terror turning her insides to jelly. Heat ran down her leg and she knew her bladder had let go.
“No more games. You will obey me.” This voice was different. It had a tinny, robotic quality with the slightest of echoes.
Corina tried to tell this different voice she understood, but she was shuddering so hard the only thing that came out was a gurgling retch. Bile that had been sitting in the back of her throat erupted out her mouth and ran down the front of her face and chest. She raised a hand to wipe some of the mess away, unutterably grateful she could move again.
“Get back here.”
“Giving you problems, is she?”
Cori cringed. Two voices: the last one clearly a man’s. So the thing that should be dead had help.
“I told you to get back over here. Now.”
“Never mind, Blair, I’ll get her,” the man said.
Arms reached around, lifting her easily. Carrying her. As soon as they had reached the edge of a clearing, the man dropped her and swatted her on the rump. “Move. My associate has a temper. It’s not wise to make her wait.”
“B-but I shot her,” Cori stammered, rubbing at her eyes so the spots in front of them would go away. “From less than ten feet. She has to be dead.” Cori’s stomach heaved again, but it was too empty to produce anything except a nausea that made her lightheaded.
“Does she sound dead?”
Corina stumbled forward. The blinding light was back. Its pulsations made her head hurt. As soon as she tried to make another attempt to get away, the man’s hands curved around her shoulders holding her immobile. She writhed against his iron grip and kicked backward trying to hurt him.
“None of that.” The man kneed her in the kidneys. Pain shot through her.
The one named Blair grabbed her arm. White heat flared. Corina’s eyes flew open to see a large needle stuck into her forearm. “What are you doing?” Fear made it hard to form words. She tried even harder to get away, but their hold was unshakeable.
“Finishing what I started earlier,” Blair snapped, yanking the syringe clear. “A herd of those infernal deer attacked me. I had to lead them away because you were unconscious.”
“Soon you’ll be one of us,” the man said, sounding so oddly cheerful Corina wanted to throttle him.
Christ! I’m as good as dead.
“Now why would you think that?” he asked.
“What? You can read thoughts?”
“Of course.” He let her go. “You’ll be able to read minds, too, just as soon as the gene splicing completes.”
Gene splicing? “What the hell are you turning me into?”
“Bait.” Blair said nastily. She seemed totally recovered from the gunshot wound.
Corina knew she had one chance to fight whatever had been injected into her. She shut her eyes and kept a close watch on her internal systems. Turning her concentration inward, she used her knowledge of anatomy to visualize the flow of blood in her veins and arteries. She shunted blood away from her brain until it had been filtered through liver and kidneys a time or two more. She had no idea if it would work, but it was the only thing she could think of to reduce the effects of the injection circulating through her body. She didn't even wonder where this ability came from.
When she took stock, Corina realized she did feel different. Stronger and more powerful, somehow. And at least she wasn’t cold anymore. She thought she had a handle on inducing her circulation to flow in a different pattern, too. Blood didn’t reach her brain until it felt clean. She wondered if she was deluding herself.
“Okay.” Cori faced her captors. She saw them clearer. The man looked far less threatening than Blair. Dressed in faded blue jeans and a flannel work shirt, he had shoulder-length brown hair and those same intense blue eyes. High cheekbones and a beak of a nose suggested Native American blood. He was of a height with her, which pegged him at close to six feet.
“Done looking?” He grinned. It sort of lit his face from the inside out.
She felt heat rise in her cheeks, then stammered, “I guess so.”
“In case you’re interested, my name is Dolan. You should feel right at home, sweetie. I’m a doctor, just like you, or was, just like you.”
“How do you know what I was?”
“It’s blazoned across your mind. But we can teach you how to shield your thoughts better. Try not to worry. You’ll be quite safe. We need more scientists. Value them highly in fact.”
“Yes, you should find that a welcome change from your human companions,” Blair said. “If memory serves me, they chucked science out right along with rational thought a long time ago.”
“Oh.” Cori couldn’t think what else to say. It was refreshing for someone to infer that her training as a physician might be welcome somewhere, but she didn’t think she should tell her captors. “You must be Loki. Why else—?”
“We’re not. We’re hybrids,” Dolan interrupted. “Loki and human DNA are oddly quite close. One can only speculate why. That injection, which would have worked faster if it had been given intravenously, inserts an extra amino acid between cytosine and guanine. The hydrogen bonding holds it all together nicely. You should appreciate that.”
Blair rubbed her hands together and blew out an exasperated-sounding breath. “You certainly gave us enough trouble.”
“Sorry to not be more accommodating—” Cori bit off the rest of her words. She was at their mercy. There was no point in antagonizing them.
“You will return to your compound now,” Blair said.
“How? They won’t let me in. My eyes—”
“Are back to their normal color.” Dolan sounded pleased with himself. “It’s a little something extra I cooked up in the injection. “They won’t stay that way, of course. But you’ll look like yourself for long enough to get past the guards.”
“I thought brown spots on your hands were the marker—”
Dolan waved her to silence. “We like to mix it up a bit. This latest infusion is much faster, and far more effective.” He shrugged and held out his hands. “See? I’ve been my own guinea pig. Blue eyes and those nasty age spots.”
“They still won’t let me in. Josh will tell them what happened.”
“And you tell them he hurt you. Abandoned you.” Blair flashed a vicious smile. “You have enough bruises. They’ll believe you.”
“But they’ll torture him.” Corina’s heart twisted. The punishment for something of that nature could be very brutal. Trials in front of a jury of your peers had gone the way of much of the rest of former civilization. As had forgiveness.
Dolan shrugged. “The human segment of your life is over. Don’t worry. That other part inside you—the one that’s horrified and helpless—will recede as your genetic code responds to the splicing sequence circulating through your body. Shouldn’t take long. An hour at most. You will remain here until the transformation is complete. By then, you will obey us without question.”
Cori bowed her head, hands clenched into fists at her side. A quick internal check reassured her that her new ability, her primitive blood filtering mechanism was still in place. Would it be enough to save Josh? She figured s
he was cannon fodder no matter what happened, but she was damned if she’d take anyone else down with her. The motives of these hybrids was none too clear, but irrelevant for the moment.
* * *
Pack on her back, Cori scuffed through dirt as she walked to the electrified perimeter that surrounded her compound. Blair and Dolan had done something, sort of a beam me up, Scotty maneuver. It had transported them from the abandoned Jeep road to within a few meters of the compound. During the time she’d spent with the hybrids, she’d felt definite changes in her interior landscape, yet she still felt more-or-less like herself. A stronger, more invincible version, though. Cori clung to that, hoping she could convince the compound Elders to either kill her and have done with it or put her somewhere she couldn’t harm anyone while they watched to see what the longer-term effects of her injection would be.
Blair and Dolan had told her they’d be monitoring from “inside her head.” They hadn’t explained much about the Loki, but apparently the aliens relied on a hive-mind type of intelligence. Hybridization weakened the gift, but it was still potent enough to enable communication, or coercion, over distances. These hybrids weren't Loki. They weren't slaves of the Loki. The Loki had no use for hybrids, so the small percentage of humans who failed to be completely transformed with Loki DNA were thrown away. At least the Loki did not kill them. Only humans nowadays did the killing.
“They know you’re there,” Blair thoughtsaid. “Limp a little. Look hurt.”
“Halt.” A bright light shone in her face for a second time that night. She stopped walking and raised a hand to shield her eyes. One of the sentries, in full hazmat gear, walked toward her, but not too close. “There is a gun trained on you. You will cooperate and answer my questions. If you make any unusual moves toward me, you will be shot.”
“Corina Bridger,” she announced. “I understand.”
“Bridger? Joshua Littleby told us you were dead. Explain.”
“When he left me, he figured the animals would finish me off. So, yes, he was correct to tell you I was dead. I thought I would be, too.”
“What happened? How did you get back here?”
“I walked.”
“Why didn’t the feral deer kill you?”
“I have no idea.”
“Tell him your friend attacked you,” Dolan hissed.
Corina did an internal systems check. She didn’t feel any compulsion to voice Dolan’s suggestion. Shy of storming the compound, she didn’t think there was anything either Blair or Dolan could do to harm her now.
“Cori!” Josh raced past the guard station and came to a stop less than a meter in front of her. “Your eyes. They’re hazel again. What happened?”
“Civilian Littleby. Step away.”
Josh spun to face the guard. “No.”
“The punishment for disobeying a direct order—”
“Shoot me!”
“Oh, stop it!” Corina stepped between Josh and the guard. “There’s been entirely too much killing. For chrissake, there aren’t enough humans left as it is.”
Because she’d easily resisted Dolan’s suggestion, she was feeling more confident she’d be able to stymie the coercion part of the injection. And if that was true, the implications were staggering. “Let me in. I won’t touch any of you, but you need to hear me out.”
The sentry waddled back into the station, hampered by his unwieldy suit. Cori waited. Josh tried to talk to her, but she shook her head. “Wait until we’re inside. We’re vulnerable out here.”
“Just what do you think you’re up to?” Blair hissed.
“Double cross us and everyone in that compound is dead,” Dolan snapped.
“What?” Josh stared intently at her.
Corina shook her head. “Nothing.” She sucked in deep breaths to quiet the rattle of her heart against her ribs.
Pink streaks were lightening the sky in the east when the gate swung open. “Proceed,” a metallic voice instructed. “Once you are inside, go to the decontamination cylinders.”
Cori stopped just inside the door with Josh right behind her. “I am not going through decon. It'll wipe my memories, then I won’t be good for anything.”
“Those are orders,” the voice insisted. “Some wanted to kill you. Decontamination was a compromise.”
“Where is Doctor Kincaid?”
“Unit forty-three.”
She thought for a moment. Forty-three wasn’t that far away. “He’s a geneticist. I need to talk with him.”
“Request denied.”
“Look here. I’m a doctor. I think I may have the key to defeating the Loki. Doctor Kincaid will understand—”
“Enough. All you doctors became worthless after we ran out of medicine.” Another figure in hazmat gear, assault rifle leveled at her, stepped out of the shadows.
She opened her mouth to tell the guard that healers had been around for thousands of years before pharmaceutical companies had perverted medical practice, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. The guard was so uneducated, he’d never understand.
“Civilian Littleby, return to your quarters immediately.”
Josh crossed his arms over his chest. “No. I’m not leaving until I see that Corina is settled.”
“Put them both in solitary,” a new voice instructed over the loudspeaker system. “Do it now. We will sort this out later.”
Corina gritted her teeth. It was better than being forced to go through an invasive decontamination procedure that was the equivalent of electroconvulsive shock treatment. The guard who thought doctors were rubbish prodded her in the back with an ungentle hand.
A two-inch-thick metal door slammed shut behind her and Josh. She stared at a twelve by twelve space with an aluminum sink in one corner and a toilet next to it. A stained brown vinyl pallet lay on the floor with a dirty blue blanket wadded up at one end.
“I’m surprised they let us stay together.” Josh folded his long body, sitting cross-legged on the scarred linoleum floor. He looked up at her almost nonchalantly this time. “Your eyes are beginning to turn blue again.”
Corina sat on the edge of the pallet and stretched her legs in front of her. “I’m sure they’re listening to us. Probably why they put us in the same cell. But that’s good. Means I won’t have to tell the whole thing again. After I heard your truck drive away, I ...”
She had to get up twice to get water from the sink, cupping her hands under the flow to drank. She’d never felt quite so dehydrated and wondered if it was a corollary effect of the injection.
“... about all, really. But I think whatever I managed to do with my blood where I didn’t let that serum go right to my central nervous system, somehow short-circuited its effects. I can feel I’m not the same, but I’m not under their power like they thought I’d be.”
“So what? Sorry, Cor. I’m tired and the whole physiology thing doesn’t come naturally to me.”
“It means I have some of their powers, but I’m immune to their mind control.” Excitement thrummed through her. “Don’t you see? My blood could be the key to inoculating everyone. It could make it safe for us to be outside again. Hell, it might even give us an edge fighting those bastards.”
“You little bitch!” sounded in her head.
“Shut up, Blair. Wait.”
Josh grabbed hold of her arm. “What was that all about? Your eyes turned absolutely ice cold. And by the way, they’re totally blue again.”
“The two who captured me. They can talk to me through some sort of mental projection, but I think they’ve figured out they can’t make me do anything. They can listen to my thoughts, though—and to our conversation.”
The metal door clanged open. Two men in hazmat suits lumbered in. “We’ve heard just about enough of your bullshit,” one growled. “Time to pay the piper.”
“I asked you to let me talk with Doctor Kincaid.” Corina sprang to her feet. “He’s a geneticist. He’ll understand what happened to me. And what it might mean for all
of you.”
“What a pile of crap,” the other man muttered. “You’re just trying to save your own sorry hide. We heard enough. You’ve been contaminated by the Loki. That means you have to die. It’s in the Book of Rules. Page seventy-five.”
“You’re already on your feet.” The first man jabbed the barrel of his automatic weapon into her side. “Get moving.”
“You can’t talk to her like that.” Josh sprang to Cori’s side.
“Hey there, wise guy. You’re going with her.”
“What?” Corina spun to face the guards. “Why are you going to kill him?”
“He touched you while the two of you were sitting on the floor. Not safe to let him live, either. Book of Rules, page seventy—”
“Shut up,” she shrieked. “Just shut up!” Fury filled her. It swept from her guts through her chest until she felt as if she were about to burst. With the anger came a sweet power. She wasn’t sure what she could do with it, but there was nothing to lose.
Josh backed away, a look of horror on his face. The guards raised their Kalashnikovs. Their faces behind the plastic visors displayed a hunger. Somewhere along the line, the guards had apparently come to enjoy murder.
Cori felt disgusted with these humans. She swung her arms in an arc and both rifles clattered to the floor like so much iron. She drew back a fist and pounded it into the side of one of the guard’s necks. He dropped like a potato sack. The other man turned to run, but Josh pinned him to the wall, then wound his arm around the man’s throat until he gagged and collapsed to join his partner on the floor. Cori kicked him in the side of the head for good measure.
“We’ve got to run,” Corina said, bending to pick up one of the guns. “Get the other one and we’re out of here.”
“What about the electric fence? No way we’ll make it across the clearing. They’ll pick us off like target practice.”
“Maybe not. We could shoot out the cameras and a fence relay, but I think there might be a better way.”
“Blair. Dolan. I killed two. Josh and I are coming out. Help us.”