Alien Bride (Love, Drugs, and Biopunk)

by McGill, Brie

  In awe with her surroundings, Ninkasi momentarily forgot the rows of bubbling tanks packed with inanimate clones of the girl who begged for her death; she forgot the situation concerning her imprisoned, not-quite-human lover who was involved with this insane, underground nightmare world, filled with weird experiments and violent giants that beat people.

  The distraction subsided; she felt ill.

  Ninkasi tilted her head forward. “Let’s do this.”

  “Nothing on this panel seems related to the tanks.” Aleister frowned, running his finger across the stone. “We might have to find another panel.”

  She moved beside him, sweeping her hands over the sides of the panel. “There aren’t any other buttons?” Tracing her hand around the perimeter of the panel, she inspected thoroughly for signs of a switch. “Nothing underneath?”

  He brusquely body-checked her aside, and dragged his own fingers beneath the rim of the panel. In a frenzy, he smacked it, and noticed the stone surface tremble.

  They exchanged glances.

  Aleister clutched the edge of the panel and pulled, to determine if it would lift.

  He budged the corner of the stone into the air; sucking in a deep breath and bending his knees, he hoisted the massive stone lid off the dais, and heaved it to the ground.

  Ninkasi stared in wonder at a gridded panel of buttons inside the dais, poking through a glass interface protecting a complex network of circuit boards. “Which button?” She pointed at the panel.

  “Easy.” He seized her wrist and shot her a stern glare. “The red button.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, feeling a twisting in her gut. “But what about Orion? I don’t want anything to happen to him—”

  Aleister pulled the black robe over his head, revealing his electrician’s costume beneath.

  The nametag still read, ‘Steven.’

  Ninkasi laughed in spite of herself.

  He pulled a long knife with a fat blade and pointed hilt from his belt. Tightly gripping the knife, he wound the robes around his fist and forearm, shielding himself.

  She studied him curiously.

  “Wait for my signal.” He lifted bushy eyebrows and shot her a fierce stare. "And if we're busting Orion out of here, you should pass me your anzein beads."

  Ninkasi reached into her robes and passed the beads to Aleister. "I guess I can't wear these. . . around him."

  Aleister tromped across the hall, standing beside Orion’s tank. “Do it!”

  She pushed the red button, and held her breath.

  Nothing changed.

  She glanced at Aleister.

  After a moment of silence, metal blades churned and whipped with a fierce whir at the distant end of the hall. The spinning was quiet; then, slowly, the blades spun faster, louder, as machines activated in succession, nearer and nearer to them.

  The earthen floor beneath them trembled; an invisible drain opened with a snarling roar, rumbling the caverns, gurgling and gulping the liquid from the tanks.

  Ninkasi steadied herself against the dais.

  Aleister stared down the hall, knife hilt brandished in his wrapped arm, poised for action.

  Then she heard an awful sound—the murderous symphony of flesh and bone chopped and hacked to pieces by the industrial spinning blades. Ninkasi squinted and turned her head away, wincing against the sound.

  “Steady. . .” Aleister cautioned her with a sideways glance.

  The symphony of automated destruction and digestion peaked in volume, the horrendous growling and roaring of the drains, the gunshot snapping of blades through bone, all moving closer and threatening to consume her; tanks emptied systematically, one at a time, starting from the furthest end of the hall and activating in succession, closing in toward them.

  Ninkasi gawked in disgusted horror as the liquid in the draining tanks turned blood red, before the remains were sucked through a chute running deeper into the earth beneath them. Kneeling, she covered her ears with her hands, and pressed her forehead into the dais, eyes shut tightly.

  “Stay alert!” Aleister screamed at her. “I might need you!”

  She stood up, woozy, steadying herself against the podium, trying to ignore the carnage surrounding her: Lilith’s death in the mixing vat had been a mercy compared to this.

  She heard the piercing shatter of glass, and spun around.

  Aleister had taken the pointed hilt of his knife and smashed the glass of Orion’s tank. Amber jelly gushed from the tank, swilling around his knees, washing away chunks of broken glass. Aleister stepped into the tank, squatted, and hooked his unconscious friend’s arms around his neck. He stood up, slogging through the gelatinous slop, pulling Orion away from the hungry blades, seconds before he would have been consumed by them.

  He collapsed with Orion beside him, sitting down into a rushing stream of jelly that slowed and pooled around them.

  “Orion!” Ninkasi screamed and knelt beside him, leaning over him, pressing a hand against his face.

  “Watch out for broken glass.” Aleister grimaced, and unwound his hand.

  “Orion, tell me.” She flipped him over so he lay on his back, slumped against Aleister, his head dangling to the side. “Tell me you’re okay.” She directed his face toward her. “Tell me something. Please.”

  “He might not tell you anything.” Aleister cast her a factual stare.

  “Orion!” She scuttled closer to him, placing her ear by his lips and resting a hand on his chest. “He’s not breathing!”

  Aleister shook out the black robe and sighed, unimpressed.

  “Aleister!” She grabbed his suspenders and shook him. “Can you resuscitate him?! He’s not breathing.”

  He scowled, puckering his lips, glaring at her for an endless, silent moment.

  Ninkasi tightened her grip and shook him forcibly. “I don’t want him to die!”

  Standing up, he removed a silver tinderbox from his belt. He tossed the wad of robes to Ninkasi and gestured to Orion. “Clothe him.”

  “Isn’t that secondary to the problem?!” She caught the robes and squeezed them, trembling.

  “Trust me.” He lifted the lid and sniffed the contents of the box, appraising them. “He needs to stay warm for this. Hurry up and clothe him.”

  Perplexed, Ninkasi tugged Orion toward her, his lifeless body crashing against her. She fumbled with the robes, seeking out the sleeves and collar; she tugged the fabric over his head and lifted his arms, one at a time, fitting him into the baggy robes. His body, his hair were slick and sticky with the mysterious fluid, reeking of rusty blood.

  Heart fluttering, she pulled the fabric down his back, over his chest; she sat behind him, to support his weight with her body, and yanked the robes down his legs.

  She glanced frantically to Aleister.

  He knelt before them. “Steady his head.”

  Ninkasi reached a hand to his face, pressing her nose into the back of his head. Damp hair. Smell of blood.

  Smirking, Aleister peered into the tinderbox. “He’ll hate me forever for this one.”

  She tilted her head. “Why would he hate you?”

  With a dubious laugh, he dipped his finger into the box. “Oh, trust me. . . You’ll see.”

  She observed in silence: how long had it been since Orion’s last breath? Minutes? Had the tank sustained him, or was he already dead?

  He wasn’t dead, was he?

  No, he couldn’t be. She shut her eyes. There was no way he was dead.

  Aleister pinched Orion’s cheek, pulling it away from his face. “Remind me to tell him he looked like a fucking idiot right before I bailed him out.”

  Ninkasi exhaled: at least Aleister spoke as if he’d be okay.

  Sticking his finger into the side of Orion’s mouth, Aleister rubbed a finger along his gum line.

  She couldn’t determine if it was mystery gel or drool forming at the corner of his mouth.

  Aleister reapplied the brown resin to his finger, and jammed it into the other
side of Orion’s mouth.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “It’s a medicinal paste.” Aleister glanced at her, applying the substance under Orion’s tongue. “Used primarily as a healing, visionary agent; however, it contains considerable stimulating properties, and in the face of our friend’s predicament, a strong enough dose should rouse him from wherever the hell he disappeared to.”

  Ninkasi stared with wide eyes. “So he’ll hallucinate?”

  “With a dose like this, he’ll trip hard enough to come back from the dead.” He grinned. “That’s why, when he finally snaps out of it, he’ll want to kill me.”

  He awoke inside a liquid medium, a sharp-edged pipe piercing his center, filling him with an uncomfortable pressure. The pipe’s emission, penetrating him, violating him, purposefully engineered his creation.

  It was a deliberate act, this fostering of consciousness. He was helpless and alone, floating in an endless, empty void of glaring, sanitary medium; there was no warmth, no love, no life.

  He instinctively felt a pang of need, a craving for nurture and support; but there existing nothing, only this tank, this emptiness.

  He felt an ache where he had been stabbed; this was the extent of his sensory excitation; there came nothing else to please, to rouse, to anger him.

  An awesome power swelled and raged within him; he doubled in size. A surge of laughing, rolling, ebullient energy gushed forth, guiding the expansion, creating him.

  Neither stale medium nor sour light could stifle the joy of creation, and he spread out, building himself.

  The drone of a motor and rushing wind interrupted him: a vast cylinder, much larger than his body, descended from the sky and devoured him with the force of a tornado.

  Forcibly ripped from the medium, he flew through the air, trapped inside an ocean of blackness. There was an incomprehensible movement of the darkness; it flipped him upside down, jostled him around.

  The sound of a vibrating motor overwhelmed him, and he rocketed through the blackness into an unfamiliar place, strawberry red, moist and warm.

  The force of ejection from the cylinder spat him against a plush surface, soft and loving; he sank into the new terrain, blinded by an explosion of white light.

  The new environment absorbed him, comforted him, fed, instructed, and communicated with him; it loved him dearly and he felt like it was designed for him, the perfect home.

  Time passed, and he grew sensationally massive, compared to his former self; he developed limbs and fingers, a face, a mind, fed and nurtured by this mysterious place.

  It was more than a place: there was a presiding consciousness that governed him. It talked to him, sang to him, and if he jutted his limbs at precisely the right angle, he felt a pressure from beyond the limits of his world. This loving consciousness existed within him, housed him, existed beyond him.

  This was the only time in his life he knew the presence of selfless, nurturing love.

  One day, he heard a scream, shrill and terrified; for all the sounds he learned from his protector, he had never heard a sound like this. The presiding consciousness panicked, filling his home with a tangible, poisonous terror. He didn’t understand what happened, only that it was awful; he felt a vigorous exertion, the agitation of his home.

  The movement stopped: terror gave way to desperation, frustration, and he was swathed in contact from outside his home, the presiding consciousness wrapping itself around him protectively.

  He drowned in a sea of fear, frenzied desperation: something was wrong, horribly wrong, and he was helpless.

  He heard the muffled outcry of his protector, begging, pleading, hysterical. He sensed other entities present, but had no idea how many, who they were, what they wanted; he intuited only that they meant him harm.

  The link to his protector was severed: a numbing agent coursed throughout his home, and its voice, guidance, and spirit disappeared. He floated alone in a lifeless chamber: he felt the pain and severance of loss, the terror and confusion of solitude.

  There was no way to reach out to his protector: something severed their bond.

  Whatever poison his protector had been given affected him—his awareness faded, numbed, blurred. His alertness disappeared into the blank reverie of a medical nightmare. It was like the loneliness of his first moments, compiled with the pain of losing his protector.

  Another acrid poison invaded his home, swelling inside him.

  His home tremored; the nurturing alcove of his protecting consciousness spasmed.

  The undulations grew violent, ripping through him, coming harder, faster, relentlessly. Startled, he began to move, forced downward; the poisons gripped his mind in uncomprehending blindness, and half-aware, he experienced another inundation of drugs, convulsions forcing him through a tight passage.

  In a daze, he was ripped away: he couldn’t detect what was around him, but he sensed evil, a forced severance from the only love and comfort he knew.

  He felt cold, injured, and painfully alone.

  He strained with his mind to see an image of that who loved him, cared for him—but there was only darkness.

  Swallowed by the void.

  Lifetimes, eternities passed; shimmering threads of golden, copper, and red-hot light blazed through the dense fabric of nothingness, tearing into his consciousness. Coruscating wisps of energy vibrated and coalesced, weaving threads, forming circles, plotting an intelligent, symmetrical shape in his mind’s eye.

  The sparkling maelstrom of plasma sharpened and organized itself: the glowing image of a woman came into focus, a celestial virgin made of flame. In her arms, she cradled an infant made of stars, sparks of luminescent devotion scintillating between them.

  The woman turned her head to look at him, tilting it sideways, electric hair blowing in the void; her radiant eyes glimmered, reflecting the wisdom, patience, and secret knowledge of centuries. Her gentle presence was the epitome of feminine grace; she humbled him, emanating the essence of a greater divine mother, with the innocence of a maiden and the infinite capacity to nurture all.

  There were no words to speak, no thoughts to convey, only shock: in his shock, she held his steady gaze, making a nonverbal declaration with the force of her spirit. He felt the blessing, the comfort that he knew in those early moments when he was with his protector, the one who nourished him, sang to him, loved him—it was identical love, encapsulated and amplified in the presence of this aureate entity.

  Her transmitted love was limitless; what she shared with her eternal infant, she shared with him. He remembered that such love was the guiding force of his creation, something purely human and holy.

  This knowledge was an honor, an irrefutable, indestructible piece of wisdom to carry everywhere, a source of personal truth and pride. It was his true identity.

  The starry transfer of love intensified, resonating inside him: the heavenly singsong voice of his protector filled his mind, and he recalled a prayer he heard her recite often.

  Synchronized with the energy flowing through him, his lips moved to echo every sweet word of the prayer—all this time, throughout his entire life, the prayer had been there, buried deep inside him, forgotten, interwoven with his primeval essence. The magic words bound to his soul and acted like a talisman, a protection against evil.

  In the blackness of void he perceived the colorful vibration of sound, the geometric peaks and valleys of waves in the air: the vibration of the prayer shook his body, wracked his soul, penetrated his cells and rattled him on the genetic level.

  In resonance, his words matched the woman’s words, amplifying the wave.

  Orion became aware of his body, aware of the incredible power buried inside him: white hot flashes of electricity rippled and crackled through his bones, illuminating him.

  He understood what he was: he understood his origin, what he was at the core, and why he developed the way he did. Despite all the atrocious things he did and failed to do, there was an indestructibl
e, immutable streak of goodness inside him.

  It was a gift from this entity—a gift from whatever woman embodied the spirit of this entity on the earthly plane. Her prayers, her thoughts, were hidden inside him, protecting him, to this day.

  Orion repeated the prayer, louder, faster, the words coming from within him, moving through him; the crack of white lightning intensified, deafening him.

  His mind, previously coiled like a tight knot, collapsed under the duress of chanting and relaxed, flopping and unraveling like a limp piece of string.

  The structure of language and the structure of his mind dissolved; he continued to speak, but his language became madness, ecstasy, tongues. There was a truth behind the prayer, and his irrational utterances were all the sounds of nature—waves breaking, atoms colliding, birds singing, volcanoes rumbling—it was the real-time voice of god, the totality of all the communications of the universe.

  Lightning crackled, blistering hot and white within, radiating through his body: he saw a flash of bones, his skeleton.

  The insanity peaked; white light engulfed him; he had lost all control over the sounds spilling from his mouth; his skeleton flashed like a lightbulb.

  A nova of light exploded; Orion disappeared.

  He awoke lying on his back in a vast meadow, a sea of tall grass speckled with yellow flowers surrounding him in every direction. He stared into the sky, a deep blue, clear, and felt the warm sun on his face. He dug his hands into the soft earth and sat up cautiously, peering around.

  He smelled flowers, heard the song of cicadas: it appeared no humans existed anywhere around him for miles.

  This place was a virgin paradise.

  Orion fell onto his back and relished the moment, the peace and quiet. Rolling his head sideways, he savored the feeling of wild grass against his face, the gentle swish of wind through the field.

  A blue butterfly soared into his field of vision, alternately fluttering toward him and floating away.

  Orion’s eyes followed the insect, curiously observing its spots and stripes; it was identical to the myriad of butterflies in Aleister’s fields, the same butterflies that Aleister adored.