25 Penny
Without Thilar there, my guard immediately fortified.
That room was big, cold, and I was alone with two female monrians who didn’t speak my language and I knew that whatever decision they made about the two of us would dictate both our futures and that terrified me.
What they thought they could get out of me when I couldn’t understand them, I didn’t know, but—
“Do you understand me?” one of the women said.
I paused everything and blinked in her direction. Once I got past my initial shock, I nodded.
“Good. I am inquisitor Naan Lore.”
“I’m Penelope Elliot,” I introduced, keeping my feet rooted and my eyes ahead.
“We know,” the other monrian said. “My name is Kora Faal. I am a cleric. A keeper or records. Knowledge. A judge.”
“Sorry, but how do you know my language?”
“I assume Thilar learned very quickly. That must have been a shock. General Vahko was kind enough to provide a means for us to study your language in depth before you came here today.”
It still blew my mind that they were able to pick up human words with such ease, but at the moment, it was the least of my concerns.
“What’s going to happen to me? And to Thilar?” I said outright.
“We are not certain yet. But we would like to ask some questions before we make that decision.”
I nodded, awaiting the interview.
“What was your purpose on Earth?”
The question caught me off guard. Since leaving, I hadn’t told anyone my real identity besides Thilar. It made me wonder if it was alright to tell the clerics. How would word get back to the wrong people, after all? Any problems on Earth felt farther away by the second.
“I was training to be a soldier,” I said. “And a pilot. I wanted to be a police officer eventually. A law keeper.”
Naan tilted her head. “So, you do understand codes and rules.”
“Yes,” I said hesitantly.
“You seem honest. Your pulse suggests that you are, at least. And you’re brave for such a primitive creature, absorbing all this for the first time. That’s admirable, I suppose, though I struggle to find a reason Thilar would be so taken by you, of all people.”
I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be an insult, but I took it on the chin.
“Are you a shining example of a human?” Kora asked.
“No,” I scoffed. “Humans are all different. Some will stab you in the back. Some will die with your secrets. Some start wars and some end them. Money is our primary motivator. A lot of us would do anything to get it. We are prone to mental health issues, whether they’re real or fabricated, and we self-sabotage.
I want to think I’m an honest person who’s only ever tried to do good for the people I love, but I usually fail.
And people usually fail me.” I paused a moment, letting my eyes wander. “Except Thilar.”
The two women slowly turned to look at each other and then let out what I could only assume was a laugh.
“You are indeed honest. Tell us about your attachment to Thilar, then.”
“What about it?” I asked, my cheeks heating.
“For one, why does your body react in such a way at the mere mention of him?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s… a chemical reaction, I guess.”
“Chemical reactions are easy to control.”
“Easy to manipulate,” Naan added.
“Thilar mentioned you have a very sensitive emotional capacity. Which, essentially, is all chemical. All things we have tried to breed out of our soldiers over the many cycles we’ve been perfecting their design.”
The two took turns speaking like they were of the same mind.
“Emotion clouds judgement. Causes our people to stray from the most logical paths.”
“But a certain level of emotion is needed to make certain judgements in the heat of battle. In situations where logic cannot always reign.”
“It’s a precise science to engineer our stock.”
“We create soldiers to fight.”
“Negotiators to speak on our behalf. Diplomats. Scribes. Engineers to design habitation vessels and perfect those that already exist. Engineers to build the most streamlined warships and cruisers.”
“Record keepers to plot the best bloodlines to use as genetic bases. We design it all.”
“We are the gods of our own species.”
There was a pause as if they were waiting for me to comment on that, but it was true.
Even if I was highly religious, I couldn’t deny what was right in front of me.
The monrians had managed to be the creators and the designers of their entire population.
It both amazed and scared me to know they held that much power.
“So, you can imagine,” Naan said, stepping down from the dais they had both been standing on. “How strange it was when we were informed of Thilar’s unprecedented reaction to you and to Pek-Tol’s treatment of you both.”
As she walked toward me, I felt increasingly dwarfed in her presence. She was not as large as Thilar, but she was certainly formidable, even in what I assumed was old age by the fine lines on her face.
“And how exactly do you think he reacted to me?” I muttered.
“Most monrians are bred in a facility that carefully weeds out weakness and unneeded physical and psychological traits. A long time ago, we eliminated a trait called Ahaar. It is, as you have said, a chemical reaction between a male and female who desire to breed. It bonds the two. Causes them to be acutely aware of the other to better protect each other and determine the best times to reproduce.”
“It’s a primal characteristic that we no longer needed,” Kora joined. “So, we bred it out of us. Mating is a thing of the past. We cross bloodlines and genetics as we see fit, so our bodies no longer have a need to bond in that fashion. And the desire only distracts our soldiers.”
“However,” Naan said, her eyes moving over my body in slow and precise motions as she began to circle me.
“Thilar is experiencing this reaction with you and it boggles us.” She pinched a strand of my hair, running it through her fingers.
“That he’s allowed himself to bond with you is as much a puzzle as the fact that he was capable in the first place. ”
“Do humans experience this?” Kora asked.
“Yes. In a way,” I said. “We feel attraction toward others. Sometimes it’s just sexual. Sometimes it’s more. We can’t quite explain why. It just happens.”
“And do both parties always reciprocate those feelings?”
“No, not always.”
“Then you do not feel the same for Thilar?”
I stared up into Naan’s eyes and watched the pure blackness recede into a heavy gold color.
“I didn’t say that,” I said softly.
She watched me closely, studying every micromovement in my face like she could read each one with perfect ease.
“Then what do you feel for him?”
My heart stuttered at the question. My gaze wandered past her to the holographic images of Thilar’s records floating over the desk beside mine, the symbols and pictures crowding the space with everything that was him.
His past. His future. All the pieces that made him.
I felt my body yearning to be next to him even then.
I felt my mind weeping at the idea that we might never see each other again after that day.
My heart tore in half. To even suggest that I didn’t feel something for him was almost insulting.
“I…” I said, swallowing a growing lump in my throat. “I love him.”
The word tasted bittersweet on my tongue. I slowly looked back up at Naan to see her expression unchanged. She was still analyzing, seeing everything as a study.
“This word,” she said. “What does it mean to you?”
“It’s… it means I care about him a lot.” As I spoke, I could feel myself coming to terms with how true it was and I almost felt my legs wanting to collapse beneath me.
“It means that I’m terrified.” Tears started to burn my eyes and I chased them down, telling myself that I had to appear strong for these women.
I had a hunch that they didn’t respect weakness.
“I’m terrified of the two of you deciding to punish him. Or separate us.”
“Why would you care about his punishment?”
“I want to protect him.”
“And why would separating the two of you be terrifying?”
“Because humans aren’t engineered. No one bred any traits out of us.
When we lose someone we love, it tears us apart.
” My thoughts wandered to Natascha and my failures regarding her and my past life.
I swallowed hard, clearing my throat. “You think that’s a weakness,” I chuffed.
“And I do, too. But it’s a weakness that I’m not evolved enough to control.
Thilar is the only reason I’m alive. And I have no one back home.
I don’t even have a home. So, right now, he’s the only reason I want to be. ”
“If we severed this attachment, would it damage you physically?”
I shook my head. “It wouldn’t kill me. It would destroy me for a while. I would cope well enough to survive, but I would hurt for the rest of my life.”
Again, she stared at me, taking in every word and likely peeling it apart to its very core.
“You are an enigma, Penelope. This reaction Thilar has had to you, the priests on Kalhor will be eager to know about it. They are reluctant to forget our ancient ways. The fact this genetic trait prevails in him will likely rekindle their connection to their gods. They’ll want him to pay them a visit.
As it stands, Thilar is now considered a botched creation.
Something went wrong in his design. The more superstitious individuals will see it the other way around. ”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he is unfit to join another unit and even more unfit to command one. Typically, this would call for reconditioning, but genetic flaws cannot be reconditioned.”
I hated the way she was talking about Thilar, but I had no leg to stand on in that room, so I bit my tongue.
“What would—”