HUMANS MUST KNEEL: A POSSESSIVE ALIENS ROMANCE

by Renard, Loki

  Humans have a central role in the consciousness of the universe. They are soft and they are weak, but they are able to sexually bond with a myriad of other species. I did not begin to suspect that one would be capable of initiating a true scythkin mating bond. The way I feel about that little human locked away in her customary concrete box is the way I would usually feel about a towering twelve foot tall matriarch, her abdomen swollen and burgeoning with eggs yet to be laid.

  “Get a grip on yourself, Krave,” I lecture myself out loud. “She is just a human, and you did not use your seeding appendage. There is no chance you inseminated her.”

  But that’s not truly what I’m worried about. I’m worried I’ve done something even worse than having spawned a razor sharp fetus inside her unprepared womb.

  I may have fallen in love.

  Love.

  Ugh.

  What a useless emotion. It’s not practical like a sense of duty, the way I feel toward my brood.

  “KRAVE!”

  Tyank has the worst timing.

  There are ninety-nine scythkin in my brood. As first born, I bear the brunt of responsibility, so I remained to oversee the simulation while the main brood continued on their mission to claim territory. I am not here entirely alone, however. I do have two of my brood with me.

  “What is it, Tyank?”

  Tyank was last to hatch, stunted in the egg. He is therefore only a fraction of the size of a regular scythkin, standing just six feet tall. That leads some to underestimate him, but that is a mistake. He is just as dangerous as a full-sized scythkin, and he can fit into smaller spaces.

  He bashes through the door, leaving a Tyank-sized hole in the plywood, a splintered space which is not worth fixing because he insists on walking directly through it every time. He doesn’t seem to feel pain, and if he does, then showing it is definitely beneath him.

  “Simulation's under control again,” he says. “Boring. What did you do with the human?”

  “Put her in a cell,” I say, leaving out the part where we mated and I formed a chemical and emotional bond with her which might very well tear me apart.

  “Just put her in a cell? You going to wait to start torturing her?”

  “We’re not going to torture her,” I say. “That was never part of the plan.”

  “What is the point of owning a zoo of people if we can’t punish them for disobeying us?”

  “We don’t own a zoo of people. We are guardians of a simulation.”

  Tyank has all the offensive capabilities of a full-sized scythkin, squeezed into a small package, but it’s not just the physical qualities which are more intense. He is twice as aggressive, has twice as much rage, and seems to have twice as much to prove. He is here because I am the only one capable of controlling him to any extent whatsoever. Left to his own devices he could destroy an entire solar system in a matter of weeks. We know, because he did that once already.

  “Guardians,” he sneers. “We were never made to guard. You want guards, you get boolean mastiffs.”

  “I know. But Galactor is going to want this territory back. We routed them because they weren’t expecting the invasion, but…”

  “Nobody expects the scythkin invasion,” Tyank smirks.

  “Exactly. But there’s a lot of Galactor forces out there. Thousands of planets. Millions of soldiers. They could come to reclaim this territory at any time. So the three of us have to keep an eye out.”

  “Millions of Galactor soldiers poised to invade this spread out colony of simulations, and the three of us to protect these helpless little fleshbags. Galactor wouldn’t dare come back.”

  “Make sure they don’t.”

  The humans are not the only ones being kept captive. There are a dozen other species living in their own simulations. The humans are just the only ones we happen to care about. Vulcan, third hatched in our clutch, is keeping an eye on the others. I don’t expect to see him for some time. Tyank, on the other hand, I need to keep relatively close, manning the security systems, keeping an eye out for the first sign of Galactor counter invasion.

  “Yeah. Anyway. The humans are back to eating sushi and talking about politics and having opinions, so looks like you found your glitch,” he says.

  “Good.”

  “Back to boring,” he sighs. “We could have some fun with the rebel though, what do you say?”

  “No.”

  The word comes out calmly, reasonably. That is because I am making a leviathan effort at self control. There is no “we” when it comes to Seven. There is only me. She’s mine.

  “No?” He cocks his head at me.

  “No.”

  Tyank doesn’t like hearing no. He doesn’t like hearing anything but yes. Yes, and screaming.

  “Can I take one of the other humans out of the…”

  “No.”

  Again, I refuse his request. Galactor used the simulation like a sexual smorgasbord, but I believe the humans will be more settled if they have the chance to form natural relationships and mate among themselves. Most of them seem to be sterile, but one never knows. All it takes is one successful mating and we may begin to repopulate with fresh blood. As far as I am aware, no human has been born in at least a century - in linear time anyway. In true time, the first human is still technically yet to be born, but true time is confusing and not that useful for making plans.

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? Can’t kill, can’t fuck, can’t even do a little bit of torture,” Tyank sighs.

  “Take your shuttle and do a sweep of all the garden planets,” I say. “I want a full report on each and every one of the captive species, noting any issues we need to attend to.”

  That should keep him busy for at least a few days.

  “That’s bullshit work,” he growls obstinately. “We weren’t made for this life, Krave. We were made to conquer.”

  “We did conquer,” I remind him.

  “Then we should be breeding.”

  “Find an asteroid then, see if you can lure a matriarch.”

  “No self respecting matriarch is going to lay her clutch on an asteroid. I need a planet to entice a worthy mate.”

  “Then find a planet nearby,” I sigh. I understand his frustration. Our programming is intense and simple. Our biology tells us to destroy life where we find it and replace it with clutches of fertilized eggs. It’s a simple but effective way of life, and usually we do not deviate from it. But usually we do not encounter a captive human world. We must adapt to these new demands, whether Tyank likes it or not.

  He opens his mouth to complain, but before sound can come out, something else does.

  Wuff.

  What the fuck is that?”

  I look around. I heard it too.

  Wuff. Wuff.

  It’s a high pitched sound, excitable and somehow simultaneously irritating and endearing.

  “Where is that coming from?”

  We begin to look around, following the sound which seems to be coming from inside one of the walls. Galactor were up to very many strange things down here. We have found evidence of all kinds of experiments. There’s some evidence they were trying to restore various kinds of Earthly life to existence. When Scythkin forces removed the planet from existence, they were under the impression that it was an empty vessel. That has turned out to have been somewhat incorrect.

  “I think it’s coming from this room,” Tyank says, walking through another door, splintering it into the same sharp pieces he’s splintered all the other doors he’s encountered thus far.

  Wuff! Wuff! Wuff!

  An increase in the sound indicates that he has indeed found the source of it. A little white cloud comes scooting out of the hole he made, bouncing and tapping toward me with two dark button eyes amid the snow of its fur. It has four little legs and a wagging little tail and ears which bounce with every step.

  “I’ll squish it!” Tyank comes out behind it at speed, chasing the little beast as fast as he can, but the animal is more
agile than he is, and it manages to avoid his attempts to end it.

  “Stop!” I call out, putting a hand to his chest. “That’s not a pest. That’s a puppy.”

  “A what?”

  “A dog, a human dog.”

  “There’s no such thing as a human dog.”

  “I mean a dog like the one the humans used to keep. I think it’s a Bichon Frise.”

  “Why do you know specific dog breeds?” Tyank looks at me with what I can only describe as deep suspicion.

  “There’s nothing wrong with knowing things, Tyank.”

  The dog has decided that it is a good idea to sit next to me.

  “What are we going to do with it? We could eat it. It looks like it might taste good.”

  “We’re not going to eat it,” I sigh. “It’s cute.”

  Tyank scowls at me. “Since when does cute matter? Are you getting soft?”

  “Not soft,” I say. “Reports after the vaporization of Earth suggested that the majority of the particles were instantly transported across the universe where they spontaneously took the form of small dogs. These creatures were known to be the best friends of man.”

  Tyank looks at the panting white ball of fluff. “What kind of a friend would this make? It has limited offensive capabilities, it is noisy, incapable of conversation, which makes it a food class beast…”

  “The best kind, apparently.”

  Seven

  I’ve found something. There is a grate at the bottom of the cell. Air is flowing through it, so I suppose it must go somewhere. It is too small to fit through, barely the size of a brick, but that little vent represents hope.

  I tap on it lightly, trying to see if it can be loosened.

  Tap tap tap.

  I pull away from the wall as the tapping comes back. Oh my god. There’s someone on the other side! Maybe someone in the next cell. Another captive human? I feel my hopes growing a little with every passing second I consider the ramifications of that.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello.” A voice answers me.

  “Who are you?” I try a simple question.

  “Who are you?” The question comes right back to me.

  “I’m Seven.”

  “I’m Seven.”

  “You’re Seven?”

  “You’re Seven?”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  Oh. It’s an echo. My own voice going out and returning just distorted enough that I don’t recognize it.

  I sit back, my head on my knees, lost in misery for a moment before anger surges once more, an incredible outrage. It has taken some time for everything to process. I woke up this morning with the feeling something was a little off. Now I know that the entire world is a lie. I don’t live on Planet Earth, I live - or lived, in a simulation designed by aliens to keep us contained, complacent, and stupid. But why? Why does any animal in a zoo think it is there? I never thought to wonder about that before, but now I know I have more in common with a capuchin begging for fruit from keepers than I do the beings on the other side of the plexiglass.

  At that moment, the cell door opens. Krave is there, looking all the taller for standing while I crouch miserably against the wall.

  “What do you want?” I mumble the question churlishly.

  “It’s not what I want. It’s what you want.”

  “Freedom?”

  He laughs. “I already told you, no human wants freedom. I do have something almost every human wants, though.”

  “And what is that?”

  He produces something small and white from behind his back.

  “What is that?”

  “You don’t know what this is?” He looks shocked.

  “… no.”

  “Hm. Galactor must have specifically removed the memory of dogs from the simulation,” he muses to himself before returning to an explanation for me.

  “This is a puppy,” he explains. “It is a small, juvenile canine creature, and it was biologically designed over thousands of years of domestication to crave human contact, to love without question, and to bestow unending loyalty on its owner.”

  “That sounds kind of amazing.”

  The white thing is wriggling in his hand. He puts it down and it zooms over to me at high speed, little paws tapping against the concrete of the cell floor. This puppy doesn’t care that it is in jail. It doesn’t have any concept of what jail means. Now its little tongue is licking my hand, and then my face. This little being emanates pure joy. Doesn’t it know that it is at the mercy of a monster? Another prisoner in a world of prisoners? It seems perverse, somehow, that this little animal should be able to channel such exuberance while I feel so dark. Even stranger is the way I begin to feel better almost immediately, as if the pup is a cure for an affliction I didn’t know I had. It crawls into my arms, small and warm and so immediately trusting. I hold it, because it wants to be held. And because I need something to trust. Something that trusts me.

  “Why did you bring me this?” I look between its little ears and see Krave still standing there.

  “Because it is good for you.”

  “Like this cell is?”

  “The cell is temporary,” he says. “As soon as you have atoned for your sins and repented your crimes, you will find that you have a better standard of life.”

  “Oh I see, so you’re going to force me to see things your way by imprisoning me.”

  “That is the idea, yes.”

  Krave

  Humans are easy to break. Humans have always been easy to break. That is perhaps the single most defining characteristic of humans, now I think about it. But this one is being very stubborn. Perhaps imprisonment is not the most effective choice of behavioral modification. In my studies, I note that corporal punishment had a place for just as long, if not longer than prisons - and it arguably was more successful. People could be in prison for life and never change. People had a much harder time taking a whipping and repeating the behavior which earned it.

  Seven is cuddling the small animal and narrowing her eyes at me with clear suspicion and more than a little pique. She does not accept her place as my inferior. She has no memory or awareness of having ever been part of Galactor’s mechanism of control, which, though less demanding than ours, involved the humans inside the simulation being taken advantage of by all manner of species.

  “You should be grateful,” I say.

  It is precisely the wrong thing to say. She bristles and hisses at me until the small dog licks her nose so throughly she cannot maintain the aggressive state.

  “Grateful for what?”

  “We saved you from a terrible fate. I have made your situation clear to you. I could have lied to you. I could have had your memory wiped and returned you to the simulation none the wiser.”

  “Do that.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to know about any of this. It’s too much. I don’t want to be in this cell. I don’t want to remember you…”

  Ouch. The human may lack any aggressive appendages, but her tongue is barbed.

  “You don’t want to keep the puppy?”

  “Just leave the puppy with me.”

  “No.”

  “What? Why!?” She is bewildered and frustrated and demanding - and I cannot tell her why. I should be doing what she is asking. It is not good for humans to have contact with full blooded scythkin. We are not a mate compatible species. We cannot procreate. She is incapable of laying reinforced eggs which will grow the sharp scythkin broodkin, and if I were to somehow inseminate her with my spawning appendage, the resulting monstrosity would tear through her womb before it reached anywhere near terminal gestation. Wanting her is biologically wrong. It is a vestigial desire, something that does not serve a purpose. If anything, it puts both of us in danger. I cannot afford to be distracted, even from my boredom. The discussion I had with Tyank was serious. At any moment, Galactor will blink out of space and attempt to reclaim this territory. They will w
ant the human colony. They will want her.

  That idea ignites the war-rage inside me. No. Nobody will ever lay a finger on this female again besides me. She is mine.

  “You’re not saying anything,” she observes, irritated.

  I do not understand how she finds the nerve to be snippy with me. She should be terrified. She should be begging for her freedom, if not her life. Instead, she has the sort of expression on her face that makes me feel as though I should be wearing a name tag at a coffee shop. It’s a mixture of outrage and smug scorn which is somehow enhanced by the clutching of the small dog to her chest.

  “Is there anyone above you I could speak to? I’d like to talk to a manager about having my memory of all this erased and being returned to the human simulation.”

  “I am the manag… I mean, I am the authority,” I tell her. “There is nobody else to talk to.”

  “Is there a place I can leave a review? A feedback form? Is there a board I can complain to?”

  “No. No, and… no,” I tell her. “I am it. I am the alpha and the omega. I am the beginning and the end - at least as far as you’re concerned.”

  She makes a wry smirking motion with her mouth. “More like judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “I would never let harm come to you,” I say swiftly, not even thinking about it. “You will never be executed.”

  “Just imprisoned with a small dog who probably needs to go pee sooner rather than later,” she says, rather ungratefully.

  It occurs to me yet again that she is not really taking this as seriously as she should. She hates the cell, but I have already decided that is unlikely to be effective. Some humans become even more resistant when imprisoned, and she is clearly one of them. If I leave her in here, she runs the risk of becoming even more of a danger to society.