Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV)

by JC Andrijeski

  She gave him a irritated look. “Never mind. Clearly your sense of humor was part of your ruse with me before, too...right?”

  At the angry expression that rose to his face, she only shrugged.

  Even so, his comments managed to sour her mood.

  “Are you going to eat?” she asked him a second later. “Or are you too busy being pissed off at me for laughing?”

  Anaze gave her a startled look at that, one followed by what might have been regret, a look that briefly overshadowed the anger. She was still trying to figure out what the regret might be from exactly, when Laksri turned to her, his dark eyes serious.

  “You should tell him,” he said, motioning at Anaze without looking at him. “What you did today...at the course. What we will do tonight.”

  Again, Anaze stiffened. That time, he seemed to make an effort to keep his voice and his expression polite, however.

  “What did you do?” he asked her.

  Jet finished chewing the bite of sandwich in her mouth before she answered. “Nothing, really. It just occurred to me to try and memorize the arena’s topography...you know, like what we do in the caves. Where everything is...distances. That kind of thing...”

  She waved her hand vaguely, taking another bite.

  Laksri made a low humming noise in his chest, nodding in sudden understanding.

  “Of course,” he said. “The caves. You are some kind of builder? That is how you could memorize this so easily?”

  Jet looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?” she said.

  Anaze sighed a little, explaining, “He means, not everyone has your freaky spatial thing, Jet. Most humans wouldn’t be able to keep their bearing in VR even with a square room with nothing other than the four walls. Even if they had a map of the room’s layout printed on the back of their eyelids, they still couldn’t do it...”

  Jet thought about this, a little stumped. Then she looked at Laksri again.

  “But it worked pretty good, didn’t it?” she said.

  Anaze looked at Laksri, too, waiting for his answer.

  “Better than ‘pretty’ good,” Laksri said seriously, glancing for the first time directly at Anaze. “Every point in first fifteen seconds...more than half in next thirty. And not getting hit once on her own body...”

  “Still not good enough for the first five rounds,” Anaze observed.

  Laksri nodded, conceding his point with a wave. “Still. Better than any other new humans. Better than the men, and they will be expecting worse. Much worse, since she has only human trainer...”

  “Will it be enough to keep her alive, though?” Anaze said.

  Laksri gave that head-inclining nod. “Should do. Yes. Unless judges think she cheating...or they do not like her. This is harder to control...” he added, glancing at Jet with slightly worried eyes.

  Anaze glanced at Jet too, frowning.

  It struck Jet that it might have just occurred to the two of them that she could really be dead as of Saturday night. How was it she was the only one who’d remembered that? It might have been funny under different circumstances.

  Might.

  “They’ll think you helped her,” Anaze said, aiming his words at Laksri. “Will that be a problem? For her, I mean?”

  The Nirreth shook his head, tearing off a piece of the T-Rex meat and chewing.

  “No,” he said, swallowing a few moments later. “It is not against the rules. In fact...” he added, glancing at Jet, cautiously that time. “She asked that I help. It think it is good idea. They should not know she has this ability...or those Royals who do not like her or me or Prince Ogli or Richter will find a way around this thing. It will also change odds on her too much...maybe make it harder for her to impress with first match. It is much better they expect nothing, than they expect something and it does not work...”

  Hesitating at the hard look on Anaze’s face, Laksri picked up another spear of meat and added, “It will also help with cover. I have been questioned...more this week. Not only by Prince Ogli’s spies, but by other Nirreth, why I have not brought Jet with me to more. It is expected that there are more of such things, until all have accepted it...especially when there is some dispute. It is expected. It is custom...”

  “How is taking Jet to the Rings to practice going to help with that?” Anaze said.

  That time, Jet could practically feel the effort Anaze was making to keep his voice level.

  “...Do you plan to invite others to watch you sting her?” he said, a little more bitingly. “Is that custom too? Or do you think they have cameras on the course, and that the camera operators work for Prince Ogli, too?”

  “The Royals will see the films,” Laksri said, without missing a beat. “They are keeping eyes on their player...they will approve of after-hours training. They already worried, as their own betting on Saturday night match is showing. She must do well. If Prince Ogli is displeased with her for taking a different Nirreth as mate and if she is no good in the Rings, they will sell her...or give her to their son.”

  Hesitating, Laksri glanced at Jet, then shrugged.

  “Also,” he added, his voice more cautious. “I could take her out after. To more public places. Use sting for more than one purpose...” He glanced up from his food, looking at Jet a second time. “...You could come, perhaps, Anaze?”

  But Jet found herself shaking her head.

  “Bad idea,” she said.

  “Why?” Anaze demanded, that edge back in his voice. He still looked surprised that Laksri had offered, but even moreso at Jet’s refusal.

  “Because I don’t want the two of you fighting,” Jet said, giving him a hard look. “What? Are you going to hit him with a stunner if one of us does something you don’t like? How will we explain that to the Royals, if they happen to get something like that on camera?”

  Anaze didn’t answer, but Jet saw the harder look back in his eyes.

  Biting her lip, she looked away, taking another long drink of apple juice.

  “How are things going with the prince, Jet?” Anaze said after another pause, his voice neutral once more. “...Is he still angry at you for the Laksri thing?”

  Forcing her own anger back, Jet sighed a little, thinking about the question.

  Ogli still grilled her pretty much every day about Laksri, and refused to allow him to be present as a bodyguard over ‘his’ human, as Ogli still insisted on referring to Jet. Since that had pretty much been Laksri’s role prior to all of this, he no longer had any valid reason for being present when Jet hung out with the young prince.

  As a result, Jet had been forced to put up with a number of different indignities as the prince tried to take advantage of the situation while Laksri wasn’t around.

  On the worst of those days, Ogli had demanded that Jet undress for him, presumably under the logic that he couldn’t force her to accept him as a lover, but still had the right, as prince, to order her around otherwise. His excuse had been so that he could ‘check her for signs of coercion and/or abuse.’ He’d meant by Laksri, of course, although the prince refused to say his name. In fact, when forced to refer to him directly, Prince Ogli had a tendency to call Laksri ‘rek-pet,’ which made Laksri laugh aloud when Jet told him.

  Between him and Anaze, Jet worked out that the insult meant something along the lines of ‘commoner who is muscular but also stupid,’ like calling someone a boor or a neanderthal.

  Needless to say, Jet refused to undress for Ogli.

  Prince Ogli threw such a fuss, however, that she eventually had to fend him off as he attempted to sting her. Finally, one of the guards heard her shouting and intervened on her behalf, which was lucky, really, as from what Anaze told her, not all of them would have.

  The guard scolded the prince and threatened to tell his parents...he also released Jet from duty for the remainder of the day, which had been a huge relief.

  The next day, an obviously chastened and unhappy Prince Ogli offered Jet her own pet otter to make up for wh
at he had done. Jet accepted, mostly because it seemed like the diplomatic thing to do, but she still kept a good distance away from the prince’s tail.

  So now her own otter, which she named ‘Ricochet,’ played happily alongside Scampers in the canals. Ogli was even teaching her how to train Ricochet to come when Jet called.

  Jet had to admit, it was rather nice having a tamed animal that followed her around and liked to be snuggled in her arms. She knew, of course, that past humans had a lot of domestic animals purely as pets, but that hadn’t been much of a luxury in the skag pits. They kept a few cats around for the mice, and dogs for hunting and to guard livestock, but most of those were pretty feral and only a few would even let you pet them without risking a bite or a scratch.

  Anyway, rabies and worse swept the compounds periodically, so everyone was a little wary of animals, especially around kids or old people. Medicine was rare...sporadic at best...so no one wanted to risk getting bit on a bad day, or having anyone in their family bit, either. Generally, animals were seen as food, or potential predators, or carriers of fleas, lice or disease.

  But the animals owned by the Royals were cleaner than any of the humans in the skag pits had been, much less the animals. None ate garbage or diseased rodents. None got radioactive bugs in their hair or intestines, and none of them shot bright yellow diarrhea all over Jet’s bed, the way the last cat she’d tried to befriend in the skag pits had.

  Anyway, Ricochet was cute, playful, and incredibly affectionate. She also gave Jet and Ogli something to re-bond over...something that wasn’t anywhere near as unnerving as the prince’s crush on her had been.

  “He’s fine,” Jet said with a shrug. “I’ve arranged to get him riding lessons...” Seeing Laksri’s lifted eyebrow, she added, “...Virtual, of course, at least to start. I told him we could try on real horses after a few of his guards got them used to being ridden...and after he got the hang of the virtual ones.”

  Laksri nodded, his expression calm. “So it is better, then?”

  Jet nodded. “Definitely.”

  Laksri continued to look at her, as if thinking, or maybe trying to decide how to say or how to ask something. She gave him a questioning look, but he only averted his eyes, looking down at his plate and sawing off another piece of meat with his knife, holding the steak steady with the pronged, spear-like fork.

  “So you’re going to the training room tonight?” Anaze said, still obviously doing what he could to make his tone sound natural. “And you don’t want me to come along...?”

  Jet nodded, giving Laksri a somewhat nervous look, in spite of herself.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess so.”

  Jet had never been in the arena at night before.

  She looked around at the empty space, seeing it with new eyes.

  Pieces of terrain stretched all around her, their placement looking more random to Jet again, despite the logic she’d found in the layout earlier that day. Ceilings stretched up to what must have been close to eighty feet, and at least one of the artificial cliff walls went all the way to the ceiling before it shifted direction and ran completely horizontal along the ceiling itself, before climbing back down the opposite wall. The wall had been constructed differently on the one side than the other, though, and ended a good fifteen feet above the main floor on the opposite end.

  Jet knew from experience that the same fifteen feet could stretch into one hundred or even a thousand feet in VR...or worse, it could look like a short drop into a pristine lake or fast-moving river that might be tempting to risk if surrounded on all sides by opponents wielding weapons. Jet had risked a similar jump herself once, with a Nirreth and four other opponents hot on her tail...well, figuratively speaking.

  The results had been pretty painful, but Alice arranged for her drop to be padded by the emergency controls, so she didn’t end up breaking her leg.

  There was an actual pool of water in the arena, too.

  The size of a small pond, it sat in a different part of the arena altogether, right near the center of the terrain and beside another section of the moveable floor. Jet had a pretty good idea of the rate at which that floor moved, but it would still be difficult to estimate locations of the various obstacles and escape routes on any of those tracks, at least without knowing their original locations at the start of any particular program, as well as the precise instant they turned on the motorized tracks.

  Maybe that was one of the things Laksri could help her with.

  Glancing at him, she saw him looking at the multi-tiered structures with ladders by the nearest wall. He almost looked to be memorizing the layout with his eyes, too, just by the amount of staring he did at each object before turning to look at the next.

  After a few minutes, he seemed to be satisfied, either by his own understanding of the layout, or with the architecture of the room itself...or by some other criteria Jet couldn’t fathom.

  He walked up to her, pulling a small cylinder out of his pocket.

  He motioned towards her arm with the same hand, grunting a little.

  “You will take this,” he said.

  “What?” Jet said, pulling her arms back in reflex. “Take what? What is that?”

  Laksri’s jaw hardened slightly, but he only shrugged. “It is for when I sting you. It should...negate...” He struggled slightly with the word. “...Previous problems. What happened before. It is safer. For both of us.”

  The odd pauses made Jet look at him more closely.

  “Safer?” she said. “What problems do you mean exactly?”

  Laksri exhaled in a kind of impatient sigh.

  “You know,” he said, flicking his tail sideways.

  “Let’s pretend I don’t,” Jet said, her voice still wary.

  “We will be less likely to have sex,” he said, blunt. “More clear...clarity. Self-control.” Holding up his hand, he showed her the other cylinder he held. “I will take this, too,” he added. “I can do it first, if you like.” Pausing, he looked at Jet more intently. “I thought you would want this. After last time. It was not easy to get it...safely, I mean. Where no one would know I bought it. Where no one might guess why.”

  Jet nodded, thinking. “Okay,” she said. She motioned towards him. “You first.”

  Shaking his head a little and blinking at her for a long beat, which she was learning was close to a Nirreth eye-roll, he pocketed the cylinder he’d pulled out for her and took the longer one, the one with more of the pale, green liquid inside and pressed the sharper end to the inside of his bare arm. Jet found herself noticing that the inside of his arm was slightly more purple compared to the darker, nearly black-blue of his outer arm and most of the rest of his skin. He held the cylinder to the side of his elbow, slightly off-center to where the vein would be on a human, until the green liquid had all been emptied. Jet saw his face tighten slightly as he gave himself the injection, then smooth once the liquid must have hit his bloodstream.

  He checked the cylinder to make sure it was empty, blinked a bit to clear his vision, then motioned her over to him.

  “You now,” he said, his voice more calm that time.

  Jet walked up to him, still a little reluctant for some reason.

  She didn’t think he was poisoning her or anything...in fact, it didn’t really cross her mind to doubt that the drug would do anything other than what he claimed it would do. She’d even found it a bit touching that Laksri had thought to obtain the drug in the first place, presumably to ease her mind that something might happen if they were left alone like before.

  Mixed with all of that, of course, was the part of her that wondered if he’d been planning on stinging her again soon, if he had the drug on him already. In that same breath, it occurred to her that he easily could have avoided telling her about the drug altogether, and she wouldn’t have known the difference.

  It also occurred to her that he’d likely known about the drug before, yet had chosen not to suggest it that first time.

  For rea
sons Jet couldn’t even begin to explain to herself, she wasn’t sure how she felt about any one of those things exactly. Strangely, the existence of the drug wasn’t as much of a relief as it should have been. She closed the distance between her and Laksri without protest, however, and held out her arm, unable to argue with the logic, either.

  After all, they were here to work. And he wasn’t exactly her boyfriend...Tyra’s cracks notwithstanding.

  Laksri pressed the pointed end of the smaller cylinder on the inside of Jet’s elbow and hit a button on the flat end. Jet watched the liquid disappear, not even feeling a pinprick, but only a slight pressure as the liquid was forced into her veins.

  Once the cylinder was empty, Jet glanced up with a shrug.

  “Should I be feeling something?” she said. “Because I don’t.”

  He frowned a little. “Maybe it is taking longer on humans...?” he suggested.

  “Haven’t you used this before?” she said. “And it’s takes. Maybe it takes longer to work on humans...”

  He inclined his head to the left, even as he blinked to acknowledge her correction of his English. “No,” he added, unnecessarily. “I have not tried it.”

  “So maybe it won’t work on me at all,” she said. “You feel something? Already, I mean?”

  He nodded. “Flatter, yes. More..indif...what is the word? Not feeling pain...?”

  “Indifferent?” Jet said. “Like you don’t care about anything?”

  His brow cleared. “Yes,” he said. “That is it. Exactly. I feel...indifferent.”

  Jet laughed at this, in spite of herself. Then she realized she felt a little light-headed. “I think I’m a little spacey, actually,” she told him in the same set of seconds.

  “Is this like...indifferent?” Laksri asked.

  She shook her head. “No. More like I felt when I had a few big swallows of that Nirreth beer on an empty stomach.”

  Laksri frowned. “This is maybe not so good.”

  Jet waved his concern away, smiling at his serious expression. “It’s fine,” she said. “You’re all indifferent, and I’m not all touchy-feelie, so I think we’re still good...”