by Loki Renard
The man on the left replied, “Or it has gained control of her mind. There is some evidence that they are capable of manipulating simple minds.”
Serena almost took offense at being called simpleminded, but she quickly realized that playing dumb was the best thing she could do, for her and for Zed.
“You’re telling me the government has real teams of people who chase aliens? That’s really what’s happening here? This can’t be happening. Where’s the camera? Seriously. This isn’t even funny. I’m not signing a release. I’m not going on television. Get me a lawyer. I want to sue you both personally, and whatever production company you work for.”
“This is not a joke, Miss Spiers. This is a matter of national security. Take it seriously.”
“Okay, okay,” she nodded. “You’re looking for an alien, you say. Maybe if you give me more information. What does the alien look like? Does it have big black eyes? Little green fingers? Does it have a head like a giant light bulb?”
The man on the left removed his sunglasses, as did the man on the right. It was a move made almost in complete concert, as if this really were some rehearsed scene. How many times had they practiced this kind of interrogation? How many people had been subjected to this aggressive, inhumane treatment? Zed was right; human governments were not ready for any kind of civilized contact.
“I hope you’re going to replace my front door,” she added as an afterthought. “That was solid oak. My grandfather made that door with his bare hands. Well, not bare hands. He used tools, but you get the idea.”
She was babbling. It didn’t make her feel any better.
The agents looked at one another, humorless deadpan faces revealing nothing. They seemed perfect models of government efficiency and brutality, completely devoid of emotion, simply doing their jobs. Their eyes told a different story though. She saw a frightening hunger there. These were not men. These were wolves on a hunt, tracking what they thought was wounded prey. Serena felt a sudden surge of protective energy, outrage at the brutal, cold handling she had been subjected to.
“Who the hell are you people?”
“We ask the questions,” the hard-faced man on the right said. “We know the subject was in your premises. Traces of DNA were found in your surgery.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She knew the line wasn’t working, but there was little else she could say. She wasn’t going to tell the men holding her captive a damn thing if she could help it.
They thought they could scare her into talking. If Serena was honest with herself, they probably could. As much as her mouth was running a mile a minute, adrenaline was making her extremities tremble.
Where the hell was Zed? He could have been literally anywhere in the universe, known and unknown, at that point. She was utterly alone, trapped in the company of men who clearly did not feel any need to follow the law. The normal rules that governed life had been suspended. Serena was certain that she could and perhaps would be made to disappear. These people would do it without a second thought.
“There are many ways of making you talk,” the man on the left threatened casually.
“I am talking,” she pointed out. “I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re lying,” the man on the right snapped. “You have spent several hours in the company of an extraterrestrial. You may be infected with any number of foreign bodies. Aliens carry dangerous pathogens…”
“Which is why you just exposed a dozen men to me without any kind of protection,” Serena interrupted. “Who is lying now?”
Her interrogators changed tack without so much as skipping a beat. “We need to find the alien you were in contact with as quickly as possible. The vessel was located three miles from your place of business…”
“There’s a spaceship out there?”
The men exchanged what felt like a significant look. Perhaps she had convinced them with her genuine surprise. She hadn’t thought to ask Zed about his spacecraft. She had been… distracted.
“Maybe she didn’t know what she was talking to,” one said to the other. “They’ve been known to pass as human before.” He turned back to Serena. “Was anyone, human or otherwise, in your home on the evening in question?”
“Yes,” Serena replied.
“Who?”
“I was.” She couldn’t help but smirk. In her position, small victories were the only ones she could hope for.
The sudden sound of a gun being cocked, metal snapping against metal wiped the smile right off her face. She stared down the barrel of a silenced pistol, her eyes widening as they beheld what seemed like an impossibly small hole for something capable of killing her to pass through.
“We don’t have time for games, and we don’t have time for lies,” her interrogator told her. “Start talking, or your life ends.”
Serena’s heart began to pound furiously, her muscles tense with the urge to run. But there was no flight and no fight either in that place. She was trapped at the mercy of maniacs with government-issued hardware.
Maybe this was the end. Maybe this was how her life would come to a close. She took a deep breath as an odd sense of calm sank through her. If this was it, and there was truly nothing she could do, then all that was left to do was to keep some last shred of dignity. They could not have known it, but the gun only made her more determined than ever not to say anything about Zed. If they were willing to shoot her for not talking, she had no doubt that a bullet was in store either way.
With a horror that slowed time to a crawl, Serena watched as the agent’s finger drifted from the slide of the gun to the trigger.
Just as she gave up all hope and found salvation in the promise of a swift end, a loud vibration shook the walls and the roof and the concrete pad of the floor. A bright light seemed to shine from every direction at once, piercing each little crevice and crack in the walls and the iron roof as the plastic sheeting fell away.
The interrogators raised their firearms as did the silent guards who had been standing in the cover of darkness, watching her life come to an end. It was such a simple, bestial group action. Like a dozen ants responding to a shoe kicking their anthill, their muzzles were raised toward a threat they could not hope to fathom.
“Fire!”
A barrage of weapons were discharged upwards. Several dozen bullet holes opened round portals of golden light through the corrugated iron. It was beautiful, and in spite of the primal fear that rose in her the same way it was obviously rising in the men discharging their weapons over and over again, a laugh came bubbling up to her lips, an expression of pure joy. She had not been forsaken. Zed was coming for her.
Giving way under the otherworldly force, the roof began to disintegrate, great iron panels peeling away like dried up autumn leaves. And then it was not only the roof that was moving. Serena felt herself becoming impossibly light; both she and the chair were rising from the floor, drawn by some omniscient and unseen hand.
She was being taken, abducted, and she could not have been happier about it. The golden glow was like a beam of pure summer, a warmth that sank through her bones and soothed her completely. The harsh steel chair melted away somehow, as did her clothing, leaving nothing but her naked flesh elevated in the beam of what felt like pure love.
The chaos was still taking place around her, but it was irrelevant. The sound of weapons discharging went from a deafening roar to a dull muffled sound, as if everything were taking place deep under water. The golden light made bullets slow in its stream, then fade from existence entirely.
The war was still going on below her, but Serena was floating above it all, pulled slowly toward the source of the light, which became brighter and brighter until she had to close and shield her eyes from its power.
Movement ceased and she became aware of strong arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her close. The weightless sensation faded, leaving her resting in the arms of her rescuer. She knew who it was before
There were tears in her eyes as she looked into his handsome face, those unforgettable features that were both otherworldly and impossibly handsome.
“You’re late,” she accused.
“Sorry,” he smiled down at her. “I was hitching a ride.”
Chapter Three
Coming to her full senses in Zed’s arms, Serena felt the relief of having escaped almost certain death. Filled with gratitude and glee, she hugged him as tightly as she could.
“Thank you!”
“Thank you,” he rumbled down at her. “You kept my secret. You were very brave on my behalf. You have saved more lives than you can imagine.” He pressed kisses to her lips and her cheeks, his hair brushing against her neck, shrouding her in an intimate cloak.
Cradled in his arms, Serena once more felt that sense of invincible safety. The ordeal of the previous hour seemed to have faded instantly the moment she’d looked into his gorgeous golden eyes. There was something different about him though, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on at first, not until she became aware that she was not experiencing skin-on-skin contact with him.
“You’re wearing clothes!”
“Yes,” he laughed, setting her down on her feet so she could take a step back, still holding onto his hand for comfort as she let her eyes run up and down the length of his body. He was wearing a black coat with silver striping across the chest that ran down in a ‘V’ toward his navel. A stiff collar attended the top of the garment, which was open partway to reveal a buttoned vest below.
The pants were similarly designed, black with several silver stripes where the pockets would have been if he were a man wearing human clothing. There was something vaguely formal about the outfit, a certain cut that imparted authority to the wearer.
“Is that some kind of uniform?”
“Yes,” he said, failing to elaborate any further.
“It suits you.”
She’d never imagined he could look just as good wearing clothing as naked. He looked utterly commanding and knee-weakeningly handsome.
After giving her a minute or two to soak him in, Zed reeled her back in and cuddled her close. “Come,” he said, sweeping her into his arms with a quick motion. “You need to get some rest.”
Serena found herself being carried from what she supposed must be the big glow-y beam transporter room down a silver hall. Their journey stopped briefly at a series of tubes, which seemed to fulfill the same function as an elevator. She was on board a spaceship. She should have been fascinated by everything around her, but she could barely take her eyes off Zed.
Eventually they ended up in a room that was sparsely decorated but somehow very familiar. Thick cream carpet covered the floor and the walls were paneled with wood. An interior door led through to somewhere else, she knew not where. It didn’t much matter, she supposed. She wouldn’t be staying very long.
“I have to go and get Pogo,” she said. “If those men have hurt him…” She felt herself welling up at the very idea.
“Pogo? Ah, yes, your small canine,” Zed said. “I have him on board already.”
He put Serena down on her feet and opened the interior door to reveal a bedroom. Pogo was sitting in the middle of the bed, thoroughly pleased with himself and completely unharmed as far as she could tell. His little tail wagged back and forth when she entered.
“Pogo!” She ran to the bed and gathered him in her arms, tears of pure relief welling at her eyes. “You saved Pogo!”
“Of course,” Zed smiled from the doorway. “I did not want to break up the family.”
“Thank you,” she smiled. “I think we’re ready to go home now. I need some clothes.” She looked at him with a broad, relieved, slightly playful smile.
Zed’s smile faded to seriousness. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible, Serena.”
At first she thought maybe he was joking, but those solemn, handsome features told her otherwise.
“What do you mean?” She clutched Pogo close, using him as a shield against bad news.
“Nowhere on the planet Earth will be safe for you now,” Zed said. “Your identity is known. There are no fewer than twelve international agencies looking for you. We estimate that if you were to be released, you would be captured and tortured within ninety minutes.”
“So… what am I going to do? What’s…” She couldn’t quite get the question out. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“That decision has already been made,” Zed informed her. “We have already left your solar system.”
Serena stared at him as she sank down to sit on the bed, her knees giving way under the weight of what he had to say. “What!? But we haven’t moved. I mean I just got on board, I mean…”
“It’s hard for human minds to comprehend the speed at which interstellar vessels travel.” Zed sat down next to her and placed his large hand on her lower back in an attempt at soothing her. She was not soothed. She had just discovered that she was now so far away from Earth she couldn’t even have seen it if there had been a window to look out of, which there wasn’t. A dozen emotions whirled inside her, a roulette wheel of feelings that settled on anger.
“I almost got shot in the head for you,” she said fiercely. “And you abduct me without asking my permission?”
“It wouldn’t be much of an abduction if I had,” he replied, deadpan.
She looked at him with tears fuzzing her vision. So this was funny to him. He was on his way home and she was heading away from hers at unimaginable speed.
Serena let out a cry of despair and dismay and slid off the bed, down to her knees on the floor. Not two days ago she had been living an utterly normal life. Now she was trillions of miles from the only world she had ever known, an exile in space. The realization was more powerful than she could ever have imagined—not that she had ever put much thought into what it would be like to be ripped from the world without warning. It wasn’t the sort of thing she’d worried about. Bills, she’d worried about. Finding someone to one day marry, she’d worried about that. Whether to get the clinic signage refreshed or remade, that had been a huge concern. Now none of those things mattered. She yearned for those little concerns as tears filled her eyes. She would have given anything for a barren bedroom and a peeling clinic sign.
“Zed… I don’t want to leave Earth,” she said, hardly believing the words coming out of her mouth. To have to plead for her home planet at the feet of an alien was madness. “Take me back, please.”
“Even if I could, I would not,” he said, looking down at her with kind but firm eyes. “While I was absent from you I was flagging down a passing carrier. The ship we’re on is not mine. It has a destination and a deadline. They’ve already lost ground in stopping to pick us up. They will not deviate again.”
Deadlines and travel schedules. Such banal reasons to be rocketed across the universe.
Seeing her obvious distress, Pogo put his paws on her knees and wagged his tail as he licked her tears away. He had no idea he was in a spaceship. He didn’t care where he was, because she was there. For a powerful moment, Serena was almost jealous of the little dog. A pet could always be content when its master was near. She did not have that luxury. She was in a strange place with a strange man… no, not even a man, an alien.
She dissolved into tears of deep sorrow and separation, wrenched from deep in her soul.
Zed reached down and lifted her up into his lap. “Shhh, my little human,” he said in deep, soothing tones. “Do not weep, you will be well cared for, I promise you.”
He did not understand her sorrow. He was clearly used to walking between worlds, exploring space beyond Serena’s comprehension. She found herself burrowing against his chest, as if she could hide from the existential horror of finding herself lost in the void of the stars by connecting with him.
Zed held her very close for a very long time, gently soothing her until the tears no longer flowed and her shoulders stilled their shaking.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You saved me from being shot.”
“You are experiencing shock,” Zed said. “You have had several not inconsiderable frights over the past few days. The human nervous system is prone to becoming overwhelmed. You need rest, water, food, and close attention.”
He listed her needs almost as if she were some kind of animal he had captured. She supposed that was probably what she was to him.
“Get in the bed,” he said. “I will bring you nourishment.”
He pulled back the covers, inviting her into the soft interior of the bedding. Serena began to crawl in, noticing how smooth and soft the sheets were, and how downy and nice the pillows looked. A sudden thought struck her.
“Aliens have beds too? This seems so much like ours.”
“I had this replicated for you,” Zed said. “I want you to be as comfortable as you can be.”
She stared at him, the simple kindness making fresh tears rise to her eyes. Pogo was not so reflective. He bounded under the covers, making a small bump that moved around as he found the perfect position to be most comfortable.
Serena slid between the sheets, still completely naked. They were smooth and soft, unbelievably comfortable. Almost immediately she found her eyes starting to drift closed. Whether it was because she was so tired, or because Zed was using his powers of mental suggestion, she did not know, but as Pogo nuzzled under the blankets with her and curled up against her stomach, a little warm ball of familiarity, she fell asleep.
* * *
With Serena safely contained, Zed made his way to the galley, where the ship’s cook was swearing up a storm about trying to work with potatoes.
“They’re all starch, Commander Zed,” he said. “I’m truly sorry, but I cannot seem to get them to gelignate.”
“I believe humans prefer them cut into square lengths and deep fried in vegetable oil,” Zed replied.
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