Alien Bride (Love, Drugs, and Biopunk)

by McGill, Brie

  Rage boiled in the pit of Orion’s stomach, making him feverish.

  Echidna scooted away from the pool, lying on her back, one knee pointed at the ceiling.

  Andrealphus leaned over her, continually caressing her. His hand swooped lower, gliding over her stomach, and dipping between her legs.

  Lifting her hips, Echidna pushed her body against him, meeting his palm.

  Roaming between her legs, Andrealphus’s fingers locked around. . .

  Aleister’s jaw dropped in shock.

  Andrealphus’s hand grabbed a firm hold of. . .

  Ninkasi clasped her hand around Orion’s forearm.

  Andrealphus gripped, stroked. . .

  “Holy—” Aleister smashed a hand into his face.

  Andrealphus held his mother’s. . .

  Ninkasi squeezed him tightly.

  His mother’s. . .

  Orion couldn’t process it.

  His mother’s. . .

  Shock, disgust, betrayal.

  His own mother’s. . .

  . . .SCHLONG!. . .

  The horrible truth about the failed body in which Echidna imprisoned herself, her inability to bear children, her obsession with mimicking human physiology—it all went so much deeper than Orion would ever know.

  His mind shattered. Orion dashed from hiding, lighting down the stairs and speeding toward the two people he hated most in the universe.

  Everything in his life was a lie—a convoluted, twisted, horrible lie. He had so many questions, and knew instinctively that he would never get a real answer worth anything, let alone an apology. He had been lied to his entire life.

  He pulled the gun from his waist, barreling through the cavern and holding Andrealphus in the crosshairs.

  Echidna sat up, eyes wide with alarm.

  Andrealphus turned around, his rouged lips spreading in an amused grin.

  Orion pumped the gun and fired at Andrealphus.

  Incompletely charged, the gun fizzled and sputtered, firing a weak stream of red lightning.

  The brief strike of energy exploded against Andrealphus’s chest, knocking him to the ground.

  Standing up, Echidna brushed herself off, frowning.

  Grimacing, Orion hooked the gun to his belt: he had fired too soon. Fortunately, the gun wasn’t dead, indicated by the small light glowing on top of the charger—but he absolutely had to wait before he fired again.

  He didn’t know if there was one full shot left.

  “I don’t know what you thought you’d accomplish by coming here!” Throwing her hands into the air, Echidna narrowed her eyes. “Your efforts are futile.” She paused, regaining composure. “You must realize that.”

  His friends chased him through the cave to the other side of the pool.

  Orion bit his lip, watching Ninkasi and Aleister with annoyance.

  “What we are doing can’t be stopped.” She crossed her arms. “Even if you were to destroy me—”

  “You won’t destroy us.” Andrealphus growled and climbed to his feet.

  “There are too many other original settlers.” She shook her hair out of her face. “Others with bodies preserved like me. We’ve worked together, through thousands of years, to accomplish the same thing. It’s impossible for your paltry efforts to overcome the momentum of millennia.”

  Aleister stopped beside Orion. “And what would that goal be?”

  Echidna paused, glancing to Andrealphus. She threw her head back and laughed.

  Orion considered dropping the useless gun and taking down Andrealphus with his bare hands. Unfortunately, Aleister held the knife.

  “Contamination.” Echidna sauntered to the edge of the pool and sat down, dipping her toes in the water. “The goal has always been the same, will always be the same—the contamination of all those who live on the surface. The swiftest and surest method to conquer your planet is not through violence—”

  “Oh, thank heavens!” Aleister smacked a hand against his face.

  “But to weaken and corrode you from within.” Narrowing her eyes, Echidna pointed a finger at Aleister. “Through any means necessary.” She leaned back, planting a hand on Andrealphus’s massive leg. “Instilling false dichotomies.” She caressed her monster slowly. “Overstimulating the appetite, for food and sex, until it drives you to illness, to madness.” She splashed a foot in the pool. “Creating the illusion of material needs, to distract and consume you with greed, with ambition.”

  Andrealphus grunted, baring his teeth.

  Dropping into the water, Echidna supported herself with one arm on a crystal-veined rock at the edge of the pool. “When we first came to this planet, the surface dwellers, though amazingly primitive, lived in perfect harmony with the earth and wasted nothing. They had an irritating dedication to considering the implications of all innovation through many generations of the unborn. They were incredibly robust, steadfast, resolute.

  “Having limited numbers, we quickly realized the folly of full-scale war. They would have united as one against us; if we were to unleash the totality of our advanced weapons technology, we would have destroyed everything on this planet that we wanted to enjoy for ourselves, including the current inhabitants.”

  Andrealphus smirked.

  Ninkasi cowered behind Aleister, seeking confirmation from Orion with wide eyes.

  He avoided her stare.

  “Thus, we chose to bide our time.” Echidna hoisted herself from the pool. “We could leisurely pursue the creation of the perfect vessel to interface with this world, experimenting on your kind as we saw fit; and in the meantime, we slowly acquired all the necessary resources to fatten you for the slaughter.”

  Meandering away from the pool, Andrealphus sat on a plush black blanket with a coffin-shaped picnic basket. Lifting the lid, he retrieved a human femur and chomped away at meat on the bone.

  Ninkasi clamped a hand over her mouth and turned around.

  Echidna smirked. “We’ve acquired your fields, your hospitals, your universities, your governments.” She stood, wringing out her hair. “Even if you destroy me—even if you destroy every last trace of my multinational corporate legacy—you will never remove us. We are too many, and we have been working too fastidiously for too long. No short-sighted band of sub-par native creatures could destroy us within their pitiful lifespans.” She sauntered away, glancing sharply over her shoulder. “We own you. We own your world. When the time is right, we will come to collect, and there will be nothing you can do to stop us.” Shrugging, she grinned. “And do you know the best part of it all?”

  Chewing the last of the flesh from the bone, Andrealphus licked it, savoring the taste.

  “You’ll have earned it.” Echidna crossed her arms. “You’ll have no one to blame but yourselves: you let us in, you fell for our lies, you believed our empty promises. And in that process, you surrendered the only thing which may have saved you: your dignity.”

  Aleister shimmied toward Orion, bumping into him, shoulder-to-shoulder.

  Lifting his head, Orion knit his brow, not understanding the gesture.

  Aleister subtly planted his glorious, sacred athame into Orion’s hand behind his back.

  Echidna turned, scowling, wary of their movement.

  Ninkasi lingered at the edge of the stair, poised to run.

  Eyes darting from Orion to Aleister, Echidna tiptoed backward. She cautiously stooped upon reaching the picnic blanket, groping for an item, keeping her eyes locked on the threat.

  Andrealphus growled and rose to his feet, towering over everyone.

  Roaring a battle cry, Aleister bounded forward, unleashing two more knives hidden inside his robes, and lunged at Echidna.

  Echidna sprang to her feet and darted away, sprinting deeper into the cavern.

  “You self-righteous alien bitch!” Aleister’s voice cracked as he ran, closing the distance on his prey and swinging his arms wildly. “I’ll show you how I carve a fillet!”

  Ninkasi crept to Orion’s side, ob
serving Aleister, dumbfounded.

  Andrealphus peered into the caverns, eyes following the fading chaos of Aleister’s pursuit. Without warning, he pivoted and lunged for Ninkasi, grabbing her by the hair.

  Ninkasi screamed.

  Clamping a big hand around her throat, Andrealphus pulled her into his body, holding her above the floor by her neck.

  Squinting, Ninkasi kicked her feet and struggled in vain to pry Andrealphus’s hand from her neck.

  Andrealphus lifted her higher, studying her with a nonplussed expression. “This one looks familiar, doesn’t it?”

  Fucking gun. It wasn’t done charging. Any rash moves, Orion deduced, could potentially end her life in an instant. Orion could kill Andrealphus with a knife, but it wouldn’t be swift, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

  Ninkasi’s life was his paramount consideration: he had to buy some time.

  Andrealphus tightened his grip. “I think this one will scream if I fuck it.”

  Face reddening, tears streamed down Ninkasi’s face.

  Orion shut his eyes. Gun. Charge. Now.

  “That was the one pleasure you never gave me, boy.” Andrealphus frowned. “Unlike the other one you like so much—it still screams when I do it, even to this day.”

  “You soulless—” Orion stormed forward, pulling his knife.

  “Drop the knife.” Andrealphus lifted Ninkasi above his head, waving a finger. “Or I’ll kill it.”

  Orion trembled, clutching the knife. He wanted to put it down, for Ninkasi’s sake—

  Really, he wanted to drive it through that bastard’s black heart—

  “I’ll snap its neck.” He swung her through the air. “I won’t say it again.”

  Orion tossed the knife and spat.

  “I’m a man of my word.” Andrealphus dropped her.

  Ninkasi landed in a heap, making a weak, grunting cry when she hit the ground.

  Bending forward, Andrealphus grabbed her hair in a tight fist. “I won’t kill her.”

  Orion wondered if the gun was broken and would erroneously charge forever.

  “I’ll let you watch” —he cracked a crooked grin, laughing despotically— “for old time’s sake. Of course, it won’t really be as precious as it was back then. I'll see how loud I can make this one scream.”

  Biting his lip, Orion drew a sharp breath through his nose.

  “But I have to commend you, first, upon your depravity.” Andrealphus tilted his head, making a sweet smile. “You’ve become something far more evil than I personally aspired to be, and you’ve grown into something awful enough to make your mother proud. Mark my words, in time, she’ll adore you, even if she has yet to realize the truth of what you are.”

  Rivers of tears flowing from Ninkasi’s eyes, she murmured rambling, hysterical entreaties for Orion to help her, to make him stop.

  “Tell it to shut up.” Andrealphus tugged her by the hair. “Or I’ll hurt it.”

  Gun! Damnit! Orion plastered a hand to his forehead and stared at the ground. “Ninkasi. . .”

  Her pleas tapered into a soft whisper.

  “Good enough.” He yanked her hair again. “Like I said, I’m a ruthless fellow, inspired by great evil when I see it. When I see something truly despotic” —he raised his free hand, as if reciting poetry— “truly abhorrent, the black wind that isn’t my soul moves and I am compelled to wreak evil in its name. Concerning pure evil, I am a connoisseur.

  “But despite the evils I have done!” Andrealphus pointed at Orion. “It pales in comparison to your true, unrealized nature! For as cruelly as I have handled that other one, the one you liked so much, you were moved—nay, inspired!—by me, of all people, to treat it with surpassing cruelty.”

  “What are you saying?!” Orion dug his fingers into his hair and stepped into a wide stance.

  If the gun didn’t charge, his head would explode. There was a limit to what a man could endure—

  “But the irony is, for as much as you liked it—you loved that one, didn’t you?—for as much as you cherished it, that weak and flimsy blameless thing, you were moved to commit the same evil against it. You sought to save it, and in overreaching to save it, you became that which it feared most. Not only would you bring harm to someone, the same harm I have done—you would do it to something you love, to something that shares your own blood. It is miraculous!” Andrealphus released Ninkasi, throwing both hands into the air, alight with perverse glee. “I never saw it coming, but you surpassed my own ingenuity! You are something far more wicked than myself!” He danced in a warped jig.

  Ninkasi collapsed into a crumpled heap on the ground.

  “If only Echidna would reinstate you to these halls, I am certain you would be king!” Waving his hands, wiggling his fingers, he cavorted with crazed enthusiasm. “There isn’t a shred of virtue in your bones!”

  The light on the gun blinked, indicating a full charge. Orion widened his stance. “Then let the obliteration of your corrupt soul from this earth be my first truly virtuous deed!” He ripped the gun from his waist and fired a full shot at Andrealphus.

  Bathed in crackling energy, the giant screeched and fell backward. His howl was guttural, agonizing, echoing through endless caverns. The sound of Andrealphus’s body hitting the floor was the sound of an old-growth tree falling, a skyscraper collapsing, a mountain crumbling. His demise carried the weight of a dinosaur; the shockwave of his collapse inundated the cavern like the radiating tsunami of a meteor striking the sea.

  Orion expected a crater where he lay, smoke and fractured earth.

  He didn’t believe for a second that the son of a bitch could be dead; he had killed him too many times with his own hands to no avail to assume that he was truly dead.

  Darting to his side, Orion knelt. He brandished a knife in one hand, feeling for a pulse on the giant’s neck. Breathing heavily, his eyes darted from his hand, to Andrealphus’s face, to his hand again.

  He felt nothing; he sensed nothing, but whatever vital signs Orion’s peripheral senses could detect were long since absent in this monster.

  Poking the blade into his neck, Orion lowered his head, listening for breath.

  Nothing. Was the fucker really dead?

  Tearing open his robe, Orion placed a hand against his chest.

  Andrealphus’s chest didn’t move; his heart didn’t beat.

  Orion bit his lip, scowling. Raising the dagger ceremoniously above his head, with laser-sharp precision, Orion drove the blade into his chest. Aleister’s sacred athame pierced the giant’s flesh, rending the heart with deft precision—or, what should have been the heart.

  The blade crashed against metal inside his chest, slipping sideways against unexpected impact and making a bloody mess.

  Beneath his skin was a hulking metal box in place of his heart.

  Wrinkling his nose, Orion savagely carved his chest. He winced, butchering flesh, cutting away the squashing layers of skin to dig deeper, to find the extent of this unholy metallurgy. Did Echidna give him a false heart?

  Or was he a fucking android?

  The blade plunged deeper, slipping around the flat edge of a metal compartment: it was a box in his chest. Following the edge of the object, Orion sliced through his chest until he found the first corner. He traced the edge of the compartment with his blade, excavating it.

  The surface of the object was double the size of a handheld communications device. Orion punched his fingers into the wound, pushing through the slippery, slimy laceration pouring a fountain of blood, and with the aid of the knife, severed the heart compartment from its connection to his chest.

  Orion ripped the unit from Andrealphus’s chest, a carefully crafted chunk of technology alive with blinking lights and pulsating organic wires. Face contorting with disgust, he heaved it into the pool.

  The splash was definitive.

  Crouching, Orion swirled his hands through the pool, rinsing his hands, his arms, splashing water on his chest where the blood had spattered.


  There was one thing left to take care of. . .

  Without looking back, Orion sprang down the tunnel leading deeper into the cave.

  A red light burned in the corner of an alcove at the end of a winding cavern. Orion sprinted, anticipating who he would find inside.

  Lilith.

  She languished, sprawling on the floor in a white nightgown, close to the back wall, as if she were previously sitting and then gave up. She made no effort to move upon hearing someone enter the room.

  “Lilith.” Orion dove to her side and placed a hand on her face.

  “Brother.” Reaching with fragile, ice-cold fingers, she grasped his hand and forced a weak smile.

  It angered him, appalled him that she had been made to exist like this, some hideous shell of her former self.

  Suffering etched itself in the corners of her eyes; emptiness sucked in her gaunt cheeks. Removed from the wheel of time, her fate was worse than death.

  He slipped a hand beneath her head, cradling her, and knelt beside her, leaning over her. He pressed his lips together: to think she had been alive all this time, suffering, was too much to bear.

  Hesitant footsteps slowed, then stopped at the edge of the alcove.

  Orion didn’t have to turn around to sense her presence—Ninkasi.

  He couldn’t think. He needed time. Needed a minute. Needed. . .

  “Brother, why did you come here?” Lilith closed her eyes. Her words came slowly, requiring every ounce of her dwindling life force to speak.

  The question was incomprehensible. Orion ran his finger down her cheek. It was his fault that she ended up like this.

  “You ignored. . . my wishes.” Her hand found his hand, pushing it away from her face. “I told you never to return.”

  He felt nothing from her—no interest, no concern. Her heart was frozen, emitting the vaguest tinge of annoyance.

  Orion burst into tears, burying his head on her shoulder. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t come back here, Lilith!” He seized her, digging his fingers into her bony arms, shaking uncontrollably. “I couldn’t!”

  Tilting her head away, she exhaled sharply, and reluctantly placed a hand on his back. “Why did you?”