by G. L. Argain
“Well, of course they are! But that doesn’t mean that they’re the same as us Selentors. They’ve been going against so many of our pursuits, and we’ve been trying to get an edge on them for too long!”
“They never treated me like a slave, though, or even as an inferior.”
“They were just hiding the truth until a later time. Tell me, has anyone from that group called you an intel-being?”
Andrew was tempted to say “Yes” right away, but then a series of doubts entered his mind. Juvir never did call him an intel-being, although he had often used the term for himself and every other alien there. He had even remembered what Anzem was just about to say before he, the alien scientist, was shot in the head. When Andrew yelled at Anzem about whether he, the human, had rights or not, it had suddenly occurred to him that Anzem was just about to say “No.”
“Do you realize,” said Voriaku, “that you may not know how their politics applies to the streets? Just because they do not set up police or infantry in every corner, ready to mutilate the entire public at an authority’s word, doesn’t mean they choose not to exercise control over their people. They may be different, but ultimately they are not that different from us. You know, this pleases me in a way—to know that our enemies are just as much intel-beings as we are!”
“So…why are you enemies with them?”
“One, because they deny the fact that they are totalitarian, that they call themselves a ‘democracy,’ even though martial law is heavily prevalent on their secondary planets, and even to some degree on Ku-an Doel.” This struck Andrew’s interest. Is that what would have awaited him if he took the technical training? He had never seen much of Ku-an Doel outside of the AOIB headquarters, after all. That, and outside of the giant shield volcano Erlenkeymll. He thought, Why did they let me choose to train at the volcano in the first place? Did they think I was just going to die?
“Two, because they don’t want us to go anywhere near Earth, or any of the other ‘forbidden planets.’ They made us sign a treaty that said, ‘Any contact with underdeveloped species would lead to corruption for such species.’ Getting savages to know the real universe isn’t going to corrupt them, and it sure isn’t going to change their fate.
“Three, because of a fucking religion! Do you know that they still believe in a supernatural being that controls the universe? They act as though they should be good while they’re alive, because somehow ‘Yhn’ will reward them when they’re dead. You know what reward you’re getting for being good? Eaten by us intel-beings as a gourmet dish.”
Andrew winced at first to these words, but then his psyche strengthened upon an epiphany. “Hey, didn’t you say that when people die stupid, then they are forever stupid?”
“Your point?”
“Well, aren’t you’re essentially saying that people do live on, in a way, after death?”
“No.”
“Yes! Yes you did! You’re a hypocrite!”
Voriaku became silent for a moment, though he was never caught off-guard.
“You know what else? You said earlier that the point of torturing me was to change me into an intel-being, and yet you also said that you were going to eat me once I’m dead! You would be eating an intel-being, which is against your beliefs!”
“ENOUGH!!”
Voriaku lurched out of the beam, drew out the plasma blade, and instead of taking off a limb, he struck the weapon several times onto Andrew’s chest. He ended up with a torso covered in blood, both fresh and dried, and torn all the way down to his ribs. Andrew could feel everything there. Voriaku then drove his fingers in between the human’s ribs and touched his heart, nearly piercing it. The human was about to faint from what seemed to be something out of a horror movie.
“I can kill you instantly without notice nor reason. You ought to be less cocky next time.” He then took out his fingers and force-fed Andrew another bottle of the dark purple liquid. The human’s flesh and blood had regenerated back onto his torso, but he was starting to feel very weak. One human only has so much energy to endure such rapid regeneration for so long.
Andrew dared not speak for as long as he could.
“Hey, are you still listening to me? Say something, already.”
The human dangling from the wall closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, still bound at the neck by a tractor beam.
Voriaku reacted with a smirk. He took out another syringe, this time with a clear liquid, and injected it into Andrew’s neck. He suddenly found himself saying, “I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna speak!” even though he meant to keep it to himself.
Voriaku raised his index finger as he said, “Good ol’ truth serum. You literally cannot think before you speak.”
“Are you serious? That’s weird!” the human blurted out.
“Too bad I only gave you a short-term dosage.”
The human opened his mouth again, but the serum quickly wore off, keeping his thoughts inside and his mouth from speaking again.
“Well, that didn’t help out much. Let’s see what else is on your mind when I give you a longer-lasting—”
“Voriaku,” interrupted Commander Fall, who seemed to be speaking from the ceiling, even though there were no speakers in sight, “we have a human on the loose in the halls and he’s heading in your direction. He may know about Andrew’s situation, so let him stand by the door for a few moments, then let him in.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Voriaku muttered.
Andrew perked up. Could it have been someone he personally knew?
Chapter 20
The human outside banged his fists against the door while yelling in a masculine voice, “Open up! If you got Andrew in there, let him out!”
“Such a moron,” Voriaku said to himself, “and yet he’s out of containment somehow. Either this is due to the Commander’s will or there’s some staff that need rehabilitation as well.”
Andrew couldn’t tell who it was out there. He had only the voice to rely on, and even then there were plenty of people who could sound like that. It could have been someone he recently got to know on Earth, an old childhood friend, or somebody he didn’t know at all.
He got his answer when Voriaku pressed on his wrist-device to open the door. It was Bill, worn and tired, who seemed to have undergone genetic modifications already. His private parts were missing, and while his stature appeared to be tougher, he did not have any darkened muscles. Despite all of this, Andrew didn’t take long to recognize his face and his voice.
Within a second, the Selentor grabbed Bill by the neck, drew out his plasma blade, and pointed it straight at the new human’s face. Bill couldn’t help displaying an expression of terror.
“On your knees.”
The human who was once filled with courage did as he was demanded.
“Why are you here? How did you get out?” inquired Voriaku.
“Eh—uh…I—I don’t know,” stuttered Bill as he tried to compose himself. He thought something such as this could happen, but he wasn’t hoping for it; he was ill-prepared. “I was laying down on a table, being experimented on by aliens, and suddenly all the aliens around me backed away. They left me an opening right in front of me, as if they were releasing me. Not really what I thought, but I’m guessing this is a trap?”
“I would suppose so.”
“Bill?…Are you that guy from high school?” said Andrew, hanging from the wall.
“Yeah…my name is Bill.” He was speaking without moving any other muscles, careful not to invoke Voriaku’s wrath. “Who are you?”
“I’m Andrew—isn’t that what you came here for? To rescue me?”
Looking up to Voriaku, Bill said, “Could you let me get a better look at him?”
The Selentor moved his body out of the way, but the blade was close to his neck.
The two humans stared at each other for a while. Andrew had no problems recognizing Bill once he announced himself, but Bill could not reciprocate. The subject hanging
on the wall was a hairless pink body, covered with blood in several areas. His muscles were uneven, with the torso being muscular while the arms and legs were scrawny. Even his facial composition was different. He was not the person Bill knew several years before.
“…I’m sorry,” Bill said quietly, “I just don’t see it.”
“I’m not surprised,” interrupted Voriaku. “He had undertaken several genetic procedures along with muscular conditioning and a shaved body. I was disgusted to see all of that hair.”
“What? I have no hair?” asked Andrew. “Even on my head?”
“You have no hair anywhere now. We removed it because you didn’t need it.”
“But the AOIB didn’t do that. My hair was intact with them.”
“They probably didn’t see it as much of an issue as I do. I’ve known other species with hair on their bodies, but species such as myself never had hair, nor do we want it. Aren’t facts fun?”
“This isn’t funny,” said Bill, “you are literally torturing us here!”
“I’m not torturing you or even this other Earthling here. To torture would be to gather hidden information that only the subject would know. I’m just changing the way things are about you two that I see fit.”
“There’s no fucking difference…especially when you’re killing us.”
“You say the word ‘killing’ as though every form of it is unforgivable.” Voriaku tilted his head back slightly as he kept his eyes on Bill. “Did you see some of your friends die?”
Andrew lit up upon this idea. “Bill! Did anyone else get abducted along with you?” Bill did not answer immediately, which provided him to ask another question: “How did you get abducted in the first place?”
“…There was Drake, and there was Keith and that one girl…I think she was Keith’s girlfriend…”
“Was she someone I knew?”
“…I think she was called Marlene.”
Andrew thought about this for a moment. He didn’t really know any “Marlenes” that he was friends with, so that didn’t matter.
Then Drake came to mind. The human on the wall always thought that his friend from high school would not be the first one to die; he was too skilled and intelligent for that in any apocalyptic scenario. That is, any scenario that offered a fair fight.
“We were trying to see what happened to you…and then in broad daylight we got captured by these guys…I don’t know what happened to them, but I think I’m the only one who escaped. I heard screams in the other room.”
“Your friends are just test subjects,” said Voriaku, “and we have no need to torture you. If anything, somebody chose not to use anesthetic.” The Selentor paused for a couple seconds. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. After that incident with Andrew and the AOIB, we realized we were heading into a war that would begin very soon. Humans are going to be in high demand by that time.”
“What?!?” The surprise was prominent upon both of the humans’ faces.
“What? Didn’t you realize that the moment you humans revealed yourselves to us Selentors and the AOIB, you’re no longer protected? Everyone’s going to want to take Earth for themselves!”
“You have got to be shitting me!” exclaimed Bill. “Like hell I’m going to let you take our planet!”
“Why not?”
“Because we like our planet!!”
“I suppose the better question for me to ask was, ‘How?’” Voriaku looked back up to Andrew, hanging on the wall. “Do you have any ideas?”
Andrew stared silently. Tears came out of his eyes, then he closed them.
“You cry too much.” Voriaku stepped up to him and grabbed a syringe from his uniform.
“STOP!!!” yelled Andrew. “Don’t move a single fucking muscle!”
The Selentor stopped in his tracks.
The human hanging on the wall, once covered in pity, now exhibited a look of fury in its eyes. Voriaku looked at him for a few moments, then he moved the plasma blade away from Bill. The alien struck, and Andrew’s feet were cut off again, but he had handled the pain far better than before. The look of rage still existed in his eyes, even after the feet had been thrown into the chute and a new pair had regenerated.
“Interesting,” said Voriaku. He looked back at Bill, who was shocked to see the foot-chopping act for the first time.
“Did—did you just chop off his feet and chuck them into the garbage???”
“Not garbage. It goes to the meat locker.”
“Oh, God!!”
“Complain all you want, I don’t feel like explaining it to you. I’m not giving the same lecture twice.” Voriaku turned back to Andrew. “So, what’s this look of anger and vengeance we have here in your eyes, hmm? Did this friend of yours inspire you to live? Or was it the idea—actually, that sounds better. You don’t want your planet to come under our control.”
“Maybe before you try to control other species,” said Andrew, glaring at the Selentor, “you should take control of your own damn selves.”
Voriaku did not take this comment lightly. “What was that?”
“You think your species is the best in the universe, and yet you let one human slip past your fingers…a human who happened to contact your worst enemy. I escaped because of a robot. A robot that had faith in me…and probably the rest of my kind. You don’t know shit about what ‘savages’ are capable of.”
Voriaku tilted his head downward, keeping his eyes upon Andrew’s, and said, “What did I say about being too cocky?” He took out the plasma blade and raised it up towards the ceiling. Andrew’s expression changed a little from fear, but not so much to lose all of his confidence. Then, Voriaku lowered his blade, not touching the human on the wall.
“…I guess killing you right now wouldn’t do much good, would it? And maybe you are smarter than I thought. I have a proposition for you—both you and your friend here.” Bill perked up, then his expression changed from curiosity to fear as Voriaku set the blade back up to his neck again. Bill put his hands up as a sign of surrender. “I’m going to let the both of you try to fight me. If you win, then you’ll have a chance of getting off the ship. If you lose, then that’s just death, and it will prove that you and all the other humans on Earth are mere savages. And nothing more.”
“We are not savages either way,” said Andrew.
“Then prove it with how you fight. Once I let you down and I say, ‘start,’ you may begin the battle.”
“How do I know you’re not just going to cheat?”
“Have I lied yet?”
Bill in the background looked anxious. “Andrew, you shouldn’t do this. It’s obvious he’s just gonna kill us both!”
Andrew was silent for a couple seconds before responding, “Well, it’s better than dying from getting my feet cut off over and over again. Might as well die trying.”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re going to die here in the middle of space…”
“Well, you’re surely going to die if you feel as though you are,” said Voriaku.
“Bill, if I fight, then you fight with me. It’s two against one,” said Andrew.
“I can see that,” said Voriaku.
“Uh…alright…” muttered Bill.
Voriaku pressed his finger onto the wrist-device, and the tractor beams holding Andrew onto the wall disappeared. He fell to the floor onto his feet and then his hands, finding that he could hardly stand up. Voriaku loosened his grip on the plasma blade, turning it off, and put it back into a pouch on the side of his suit. Bill leaned forward and put his hands onto the floor, feeling relief throughout his body. Andrew, on the other hand, was having issues; his arms were numb, his legs and feet were very sensitive, and the rest of his body was nothing but a giant ballast. He crawled to the wall, fixated himself into a sitting position, and attempted to squat.
Pressing his hands onto the wall for support, his legs turned pink as he slowly pushed himself up with all of his energy. He found himself successfully standin
g, albeit he had supported the majority of his body weight onto the wall and his legs were shaking.
“Ugh, just take this,” complained Voriaku, who handed Andrew a neon-green colored pill. “I’d rather not have to fight someone that looks as pathetic as you do now.”
Andrew looked at the pill for a brief moment, then he quickly ingested it. Bill was shocked to see him take the pill without much hesitation. What if it was poison, he thought? A few seconds later, the effects commenced; his legs and arms burned with sensation as they tore themselves apart and repaired themselves continuously. Muscles fibers overlapped other fibers, the skin doing its best to catch up. Eventually, Andrew found himself in the same extraordinary physical state as he was before the abduction.
“…Damn,” said Bill, breaking the short silence.
“Well now,” said Voriaku, “shall we get on with this already?”
Andrew looked at the Selentor, giving no sign of a response other than saying the word, “Sure.”
Voriaku turned back to Bill and said, “You too.” Bill obeyed and stood up.
The alien lieutenant stood back a couple paces so that the three people in the room formed an equilateral triangle. Bill was closest to the door, Andrew was farthest, and Voriaku was to the side of the room.
Voriaku gave a quick look at the two humans, both staring back, and said abruptly, “Start.”
Andrew lunged forward immediately while Bill stood and stared. The proactive human gave a quick yet powerful strike with his fist toward the alien, who had just as quickly avoided the attack. Andrew’s fist bashed against the wall with a loud sound that resonated within the room like a bell. Voriaku retaliated with a jab to the abdominal area, forcing the air out of Andrew’s lungs. Bill hesitated to step forward, determined to see whether Andrew would really need his help or not. As Andrew bent forward as of a reflex, he noticed Voriaku raise his arm again before being hit by it in the face. The human was propelled into the wall, having his nose broken. Voriaku stepped forward, preparing to deliver a third and finishing blow, when suddenly Bill stepped in and kicked him in the back. This startled the Selentor for a brief moment as he turned around. Bill had a trace of fear in his eyes, yet he covered it up as he set himself up in a defensive stance. Voriaku directed all of his attention upon Bill, ignoring the fact that Andrew had stood back up again. Andrew made a gesture towards Bill, signaling that they would attack at the same time.