by Elin Wyn
“You got it.” I gave him a thumbs-up.
“I’ll swing by the lab when I’m done.”
“See you later.”
I left the camp at a brisk pace, eager to ship off the blood. I took some extra samples for my own analysis. There was always a chance it could lead to a breakthrough in my project.
“Where’s your burly bodyguard?” Eluna asked when I swiped into the building.
“He has other jobs besides watching me,” I replied.
“I stand by what I said this morning. I think you two like each other.”
“That’s nice. I have plant blood to test.”
“Plant blood?”
I shrugged. “I also need these samples sent to the lab in Nyhiem. I’ve already written out the packing slip.” I placed the samples and the packing slips on Eluna’s desk.
“I’m still hung up on the plant blood thing.”
“I know, it’s weird. But since the Puppet Master insists it’s not exactly sap, we don’t have a better name for it yet. Might as well keep things simple why we still can, right?”
“Is that why you won’t admit that you like the Skotan?” Eluna gave me a conspiratorial look.
“In time, I might consider said Skotan a friend. I’ve made friends with an ancient being that brings life to our planet. Being friends with a Skotan doesn’t seem daunting after that.” I shrugged.
“But we’re talking about a specific Skotan, one you wanted to kill the first time you brought him here,” she pointed out.
“It’s safe to say that I no longer want to kill him,” I laughed.
“Because you like him.”
And, I wasn’t going there. No matter that those little flutters were getting stronger.
“Because he’s tolerable,” I corrected. “Please mail the samples for me? It’d be great if they arrived tomorrow.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Pillie at the postal service owes me a favor.” Eluna winked.
“I don’t want to know,” I chuckled before heading back to the main lab.
My department was nine floors up.
Technically, Dr. Kroner ran our department even though I was Dr. Crane’s right hand. If I wanted to run the department, I would’ve fought for it.
Lucky for Dr. Kroner, I wanted to remain in the field and work on my special projects. I was too young to run a department from a corner office.
“The planet whisperer returns,” my co-worker Anita chirped when I walked in. “Where’s that bodyguard?”
“Why is everyone so interested in Jalok?” I made my way to an open desk and pulled out my samples of the Puppet Master’s blood.
“Because he’s hot,” Anita said bluntly. I almost knocked over one of my samples.
“You okay?” Another co-worker, Jett, asked.
“All good.”
“What’s that stuff anyway?”
“Plant blood. Yes, I know that’s incorrect but that’s just what I’m calling it until I figure out what’s in it.”
“You can use the mass spectrometer when I’m done,” Jett offered.
“Thanks. Hopefully, that’ll give me a starting point.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Anita pressed. “Where’s the hot bodyguard?”
“Do you really think Jalok’s hot?” I asked.
“We all do.”
I turned to Jett in disbelief.
“Don’t look at me. I like my partners human,” he shrugged. “Not that I have anything against the aliens. I don’t support those radicals. I just don’t want to fuck any of the aliens.”
“Thanks for the clarification,” I chuckled.
“Well, I’d fuck him,” Anita shrugged.
“That’s not a surprise,” my colleague, Raleigh, said snidely as she brushed past Anita’s desk.
“Put the fangs away, Ra,” Anita tutted.
“If you need to get laid, Ra, I humbly offer my services.” Dyrn, a lab tech, strolled by.
“Try and I’ll stick a pipette in a place a pipette should never be.” She glanced down at his groin region to punctuate her threat.
“This is why I spent my days talking with the Puppet Master,” I laughed. “You all need to get out more. Or less. Something!”
“No way an ancient, all-powerful, mystery of the ages is more entertaining than we are.” Anita flashed a winning smile.
“More entertaining? No. More civilized? Absolutely.”
I prepared my samples for several types of analysis while my lab mates bickered around me.
“So,” Anita leaned over onto my desk. “Did you bang the bodyguard yet?”
“What is it with you and Eluna?” I groaned.
“Eluna’s talked to you about him too?” Anita grinned.
“Yes. Twice now.”
“Glad I’m not the only one who sees it. When you two are in the room, you can cut the sexual tension with a knife.”
“That’s just wishful thinking on your part.” I placed a tiny droplet of the Puppet Master’s blood on a slide and placed it under the microscope.
“You’re telling me you’ve never fooled around with him? Hasn’t he been staying at your apartment?”
“Yes, he is and no we haven’t.” I adjusted the magnification. Nothing I saw looked familiar to me which was both equal parts frustrating and exciting. I removed the slide and carefully cleaned it, trying to focus on my work, and not the memory of his broad, shirtless chest.
“Should that be foaming?” Anita asked as the cleaning agent came into contact with the Puppet Master’s blood.
“Definitely not.” I quickly washed the slide with water and noted the blood’s reaction with the cleaning agent.
Trying, and failing.
“I still can’t believe you haven’t made a move at the bodyguard.”
“This really is a hot-button issue for you, isn’t it?” I asked. “If I tell you that we kind-of-sort-of-not-really kissed will that get you off my back?”
“Absolutely not!” Anita squealed. “You have to tell me everything. How did it happen?”
“What happened?” Dyrn called from across the lab space.
“Dottie kissed the bodyguard.”
“That’s great!” Dyrn said. I gave him a quizzical look.
“Dottie, you have to admit it’s been a while since you did anything that didn’t involve your work. I have K’ver friend who’s the same way. You’ll never meet someone more dedicated. I was just telling him over a beer the other night that he needs to--”
Dyrn suddenly paused.
“He needs to what?” I prompted without looking up from my samples.
“He needs to die.”
“What?” I looked up. Dyrn didn’t look right. His skin was paler and covered in a sheen of sweat. His eyes were wild and unsettling, darting around the room like he was watching a fly.
“He needs to die. They all need to die. They’re scum sucking the life out of our planet and they need to die!”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Anita stood up and backed away.
“Calm down, dude. Are you feeling okay?” Jett moved closer to Dyrn, arms outstretched.
“Are you one of them?” Dyrn twisted his neck in an unnatural way to look at Jett.
“Am I one of what? You really need to lie down.”
“An alien lover!” Dyrn wailed. He whirled around and pointed at me with a shaking hand. “She’s one of them. She admits that she kissed him.”
“We need a medic in here now,” I ordered. “I think he’s been exposed to an airborne toxin or something.”
“Get the gas masks on,” Anita ordered.
Raleigh dashed out of the room to alert someone while Jett, Anita and I pulled on emergency masks. While I was adjusting my mask, Dyrn launched himself at me. He landed hard on the desks, clawing at me with his hands.
I leaped back, desperate to put as much between him and I as I could but he just kept scrambling. His clammy fingers latched around my arm.
I ripped myself away but as I did, he dug his nails in hard enough to tear the fabric of my lab coat.
“Dyrn!” I shouted. “Stop and think. You don’t have to do this.”
“I have to do my part to cleanse my planet,” Dyrn growled.
“You’re doing a terrible job.” I turned at the sound of Jalok’s voice.
“Are you alright?” he asked me, voice grim.
I nodded. “Just try not to kill Dyrn,” I requested. “I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s not really like this!”
Jalok nodded and moved quickly so he was between me and Dyrn.
Upon seeing Jalok, Dyrn spiraled deeper into a rage.
“I’ll kill every last one of you if I have to.” Dyrn leaped at Jalok, who dodged with ease.
“That’s not a fight you’re going to win,” Jalok warned. “All you’re doing is hurting your own people.”
“Stop messing with my mind!” Dyrn screamed. He grabbed at the vials strewn about his workspace, uncapped one, and threw its contents at Jalok.
Jalok shouted in pain. I winced as his skin reacted to whatever Dyrn threw at him.
From the looks of it, it was some kind of acid. Dyrn threw vial after vial, burning Jalok more with each toss.
“I won’t stop,” Dyrn threatened. “I don’t care what it takes. I won’t stop until you’re all dead at my feet.”
With a snarl, Jalok rushed forward and grabbed Dyrn by the waist. He threw Dyrn across the room. Dyrn landed hard, but pulled himself to his feet, ready to attack again.
“Just stop,” Jalok yelled. “You can’t win this!”
Dyrn charged again, then stumbled over the rubble from the desk. Arms flailing, he lost his footing and fell back - right through a partially open window.
Jalok lunged forward, clutching at Dyrn’s outstretched arms, but it was too late.
Dyrn screamed until we heard him hit the ground.
Jalok
“I’m fine,” I said, but no one seemed to care.
I tried to hold on to a table, but my fingers felt limp and lifeless. They skidded over the slick surface, and I lost my balance. The ground rushed up to meet me at break-neck speed, and I hit it so hard the whole building seemed to shake underneath me.
Every single inch of my body felt like it was on fire, and I grimaced as I felt sharp stabs of pain.
Dottie knelt beside me but, even though my eyes were wide open, the most I could see was a vague silhouette.
“Oh, God,” I heard her say, her voice sounding as if it was coming at me from the other side of the galaxy. I couldn’t think straight, and it took all of my brain power to decode the meaning behind her words. “Jalok! Are you okay?”
“I’m...I’m fine…” I tried to say between hard breaths, and that even though I felt like miniature thermonuclear explosions were happening underneath my skin. I gritted my teeth so harshly I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear them shatter under the pressure.
I balled my hands into fists then, the urge to scratch myself an overwhelming one. Every inch of my body itched, and it was taking all of my willpower not to peel my own skin off.
“The paramedics are on their way,” Dottie cried out, but I couldn’t really understand any of the words leaving her mouth.
The pain was so fierce that it felt like a thousand needles had been pushed against my brain, their sharp ends numbing everything but the suffering.
I deployed my scales on instinct, but that only seemed to make it all worse. Searing pain shot up from underneath them with a vengeance, and every single joint and ligament on my body felt like it was burning from the inside out.
I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw, oblivious to whatever was going on around me.
The acid ate into my skin hungrily, and I knew it would only be a matter of time until my body gave out. I remembered Dottie saying something about paramedics, but I didn’t hang my hopes on it.
Even if they got here on time, it’d be a matter of luck. Dyrn had thrown so much shit my way that my skin had to be like the counter of a bar on a busy Saturday night.
Skrell, I thought, not like this.
It took all I had not to pass out.
Pushing myself off the floor, I sat against a wall and opened my eyes.
Dottie remained kneeling by my side, her eyes brimming with tears.
I didn’t want her to see this, but I didn’t want her to leave.
Of course. Nothing had made sense, not since I found her in that alleyway.
“Move aside, move aside,” I heard a chorus of voices repeat, and then there were gloved hands on my body. I groaned as someone forced me to lay down, and a pair of quick moving hands rolled me onto a stretcher.
I kept my eyes open as I was carted out of the lab, but I couldn’t even register where I was going. The hallways looked all the same, and the human faces peering down at me all shared the same concerned look.
Suddenly, the bland ceiling of the hallways was replaced by a bright blue sky, and I closed my eyes as that brightness burnt my brain.
“Steady now,” someone said, and the stretcher was lifted up and onto something. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that I was in the back of an emergency hovercraft.
The pungent smell of antiseptic hit me like a brick, and that only helped the swaying motion of the hovercraft in making me nauseous.
I tried to sit up, but a dozen hands pushed me back onto the stretcher, all while someone placed a breathing mask over my mouth.
“Don’t move now,” another voice said, and then someone held my arm as I tried to rip the breathing mask off my face. “You’re gonna feel a little sting.”
I didn’t feel anything.
I noticed the needle going under one of my scales and pushing through my skin, but there was no actual pain.
It was as if I was under a metric ton of anesthetics...except these anesthetics made it feel like my body was burning from the inside out.
“Dottie...Dottie…” It was my own voice, but I didn’t even recognize it.
It came out throaty and garbled, sounding foreign to my own ears, and every word that spilled out from between my lips felt like lava.
I didn’t even know if Dottie was in there with me but, somehow, that was the only thing I cared about.
I endured the ride as well as I could, slipping in and out of consciousness. All around me nurses and doctors screamed out their orders as they wheeled me through hospital corridors, and I suddenly realized that I was already out of the emergency transport.
“You’re going to be just fine,” a man wearing blue scrubs told me, but I didn’t trust his words. I didn’t feel like I was going to be fine. My skin seemed to be melting off, and I was in so much pain that to think rationally was an impossible mission. “We’ve put you on some pretty strong painkillers, so you’ll start feeling better in a couple of minutes. You might feel a bit drowsy, but it’s going to be fine. Just hang in there, alright?”
“Kavnash aher,” I groaned, the old Skotan military salute somehow jumping to the front of my mind. I was trying to speak to the medical staff, but my brain had already dove off the deep end.
Clenching my jaw, I forced my eyelids up and tried to regain my bearings. I could hear the constant beeping of some machine beside me, nurses reading off their charts, hurried footsteps...and then there was nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
My body felt so light I was almost afraid I would float up, and the hospital bed I was laying in was adrift in never-ending darkness. Sitting up, I stared into the void. In the distance, I could see two figures drifting toward me.
They were as tall as I was, the two of them donning military uniforms, and I felt my heart tightening as I recognized my father and grandfather.
“Father,” I muttered, but he just glared at me, his expression one of contempt.
“You’re no son of mine.” He didn’t move his lips, but his voice reached me all the same. “You’re an embarrassment. Look at the state you’re in.�
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“It didn’t even happen on the battlefield,” my grandfather said. Instead of contempt, there was disappointment in his voice. That hurt even more. “You were meant for great things. You were meant to be a warrior. But look at you now.”
“I am a warrior,” I tried to say, but as I opened my mouth no words came out. My tongue felt as heavy as lead, and my lips were suddenly sewn together.
The two of them just looked at me, their contempt and disappointment like two lethal bullets, and then I heard a metallic sound cut through the silence.
It was rhythmic and heavy, echoing inside my head like thunder, and I turned my face to see an old human walking toward me, a cane in his hands.
He slammed the tip of the cane against an invisible floor with each step he took, and he stopped right at the foot of my bed. I had no idea who he was, but his face reminded me of Dottie.
Even though I couldn’t tell how I knew it, that was her grandfather. Great, great, something.
“You stay away from Dottie, you hear me?” The old man said, and I watched in horror as his eyes turned black. “You’re not a warrior, nor are you a good man. You’re just a worthless thug. Stay away from Dottie. She’s too good for you.”
“No…no...” I breathed out, over and over again, and the bed I was in started sinking into the darkness.
Suddenly, there was water all around me, and it rushed up my body until I was struggling to keep my head above it.
Struggling, I did my best to breathe, but that just made me swallow more and more of that dark water.
I was drowning.
Not like this, I thought before I passed out, not like this.
Then, right before I drifted off, I cried out.
“Dottie!”
Dottie
The lab was closed today for obvious reasons. A grief counselor was on standby for any of the staff, particularly in my department.
But a sit down with a grief counselor wasn’t the reason I was awake at the crack of dawn that morning. I’d barely slept. I tossed and turned all night.
Jalok was seriously injured. He’d been taken from my lab building by his own team and I wasn’t allowed to follow him to make sure he was okay.