Chapter 1 #2
We sit down at a table in the food court and the two of us dig into our meals. My rescuer eats like he is starving. I eat like I never thought I’d get to eat again.
“I should probably get your name,” I say.
“Freak,” he says. “That’s what they call me. Pretty sure I had another name before that, but Freak is what sticks in my head now. The rest will come back later, once my energy returns.”
I frown slightly. I didn’t notice it before, because we were in motion high above the ground and I was as scared of gravity as I had been of water right before, but now I look at him more closely, I see that in addition to scars that look like they probably came from rough living or combat, there are some that look medical.
They are surgical in their precision and they are straight where the others are rough or angular.
“Uhm, what kind of being are you? I’m human,” I say.
“Psyon,” he says, his handsome cheek flexing with amusement because he obviously thinks I should know what he is.
“I’ve heard about Psyons before!” I say. “Never met one, though. They say you guys can control time and space and you don’t live on a real planet, but you have a special realm that can only be accessed by your kind.”
“Most of that is true in various ways,” he says, smiling a little. “Thank you for reminding me.”
“You forgot?”
He shakes his head. His blue hair waves with the motion. I want to touch it, but I don’t because that would be weird. “Can’t remember a lot of things right now. They’ve been experimenting on me for months. Maybe years. Time doesn’t run in the usual way for creatures of our kind.”
“That’s fucked up.”
He eats another big bite of burger and nods.
“Yeah,” he says when he’s swallowed. “It is.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“Me too,” he says. “Why were you about to drown?”
“My best guess is the fluid tank punctured internally, fried the door locks and capsule electrics. Then the water dispensers somehow got jammed on and kept producing H2O.”
“Series of unlikely and unfortunate events. Sounds more like sabotage than accident,” he frowns.
“I don’t know who would do that. I don’t know anyone here.”
“Where are you from?”
“Genesis Prime.”
“Oh. One of the original human colonies,” he says, grinning and pretending to doff his cap at me.
“Oh, yes. Very original. I can trace my ancestors all the way back to Artemis 113,” I say, pretending to think highly of myself.
He smirks.
“You’re in a good mood for a man who just escaped a torture camp,” I notice.
I also notice he doesn’t seem to be scared of anybody coming after him.
He’s not even trying to hide. I wonder what he did to them all in order to be so comfortable now.
I look into his golden eyes, and I feel an intense shiver run through me as I feel a very particular kind of power.
“Yes,” he says, mimicking my tone and cadence.
I get the feeling he’s talking to me almost the same way I’d talk to someone I thought was simple.
I can feel him dumbing himself down for me.
Psyons are smart. Like, crazy, wicked, beyond human comprehension intelligent.
The casual way he’s talking to me right now is probably his equivalent of the way people talk to dogs.
“Is that because you were imprisoned somewhere that’s not actually this station but you escaped through a series of quantum tunnels that nobody else could ever hope to perceive, much less use themselves?”
I hope I sound smart. He looks at me with surprise, so maybe I do.
“Yes,” he says. “That’s not far off precisely what I did.
And you’re right. The Collective that had me captive is not located here.
But they will trace me. They are also quite advanced technologically.
So I am in a hurry of sorts. I need to cover my tracks in the same way any fleeing animal does. ”
As he speaks, I look at him more closely. Every time my eyes land on a part of his body, I see evidence of what must have felt like torture.
“It’s nice not to have needles sticking into every part of me more or less constantly,” he says, catching my gaze.
“What were they doing, injecting you with things?”
“Injecting me with things, and sucking other things out,” he says. “I don’t think there was a bit of me they didn’t biopsy.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Agreed,” he says, not pointing out the fact that I already said that, and therefore it’s not a very original or useful observation. I get the impression he is very much a gentleman underneath all those scales and scars and such.
* * *
Freak
This human is adorable. Her hair is a reddish blonde, her nose is covered in freckles, and she has sweet green-brown eyes. Her mind is an absolute goldmine of thoughts rushing in different directions.
She likes the food. She thinks I’m hot. She’s wondering if she can get back to her ship and repair it—the answer to which is absolutely not. That thing was a death trap to begin with and is even less structurally sound now that I have had my way with it.
She thinks I am attractive. She’s wondering if I like her. She’s thinking about how broad my shoulders are and she’s having several rounds of explicit thoughts that flash through her mind so fast I don’t think she’s probably aware of having them.
I can sense how lost she is, how hard she is working to be okay. She is still internally trembling from her recent brush with death. I want to save her again. This time from those deep feelings that are welling up in front of me rather than physical danger.
I have been through hell these past months. Trapped by my enemies, experimented upon, tortured for the fun of it. It is not often that one of my kind finds themselves vulnerable, and I did not like it one bit.
I am finding this little human’s presence a pleasant distraction.
I am also finding her alluring in the physical sense.
She has lovely curves just barely contained in her spacesuit, thick thighs, wide hips, ample ass.
My species is supposed to be relatively immune to appearance, but hers is so delicious I cannot draw my gaze away from her.
Her concern for me is sweet and genuine.
Usually when I interact with others, and almost constantly through my confinement, there is an undercurrent of self-serving malice.
There are calculations and plans. This human is not trying to get anything from me.
She’s actually more worried about me than she is for herself.
I can feel something below her thoughts, a sadness, a yearning, a quest of some kind. She is on this station because she is missing something important. I can feel the shape of it, and I can tell it is fundamental. But I don’t know what it is because in this moment she is more focused on me.
She’s thinking to herself how pretty my eyes are and she’s wondering how big my cock is. She’s chastising herself inwardly and sliding her gaze away from mine now. The cute little thing has no idea that I can read her thoughts as easily as I could read any book.
I feel an intense rush of connection and care. I have to get moving. I can’t stay still, not until I find a way back to the home realm, and I will not be taking any obvious paths there in the short term. I need to run, I need to stay clear of the hunters, and I can’t leave her behind.
She’s mine.
And I want to answer that question about my cock.
* * *
Mara
“As I said, they’re going to be looking for me, so I am going to have to escape this station,” he says.
“Oh. Okay. Well. It was nice meeting you… ohhh ahhh! What are you doing?”
He reaches out and takes me by the hand. The effect of this is my relatively small hand being absolutely enveloped in his much larger and more clawed one. His grip is not too tight, but there is no way I will be escaping it.
My reaction might seem a bit overkill given the gesture is generally a mild one, but there’s something in the energy of the way he does it that freaks me the hell out.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to kidnap you,” he says, both making me feel like my reaction was accurate, and starting to walk away from the food court. He keeps my hand in his, and he is striding toward the docks.
Kidnap me? After we shared burgers? I am stunned by the decision, and by the way he immediately executes it, before I really have a chance to process it. I guess that’s how kidnapping works.
“I really think we should discuss this!” I call out as he more or less drags me about.
He pauses at one of the quieter, more industrial corners of the station and turns to look at me.
“What do you want to discuss?”
“Why are you kidnapping me?”
He smiles and pushes some of my hair out of my face. It got all mussed up in the course of my abduction. “Two reasons. And kidnapping is the wrong word, actually.”
“Oh, good,” I sigh. “It felt like you were just going to steal me away and keep me for yourself.”
“I’m going to make you my pet,” he says.
“What? Why?” I am half-pretending to be shocked.
I know that aliens take humans for all kinds of things, from mates, to pets, to general supplies.
We can be kept on ships in relatively small cells and turned into a good source of protein and essential vitamins and minerals with minimal processing. Some of them like to eat us raw.
The alien, Freak, explains his plan to me in simple terms designed to ensure that I understand. He is patient as his deep voice catalogues my many shortcomings.
“You’re human. You’re small. You’re weak. You’re wet. And you’re a very long way from home. You will serve me as my pet, and I will look after you as your master.”
The creature saying this to me is right about a lot of things.
Compared to his towering alien frame, I am small.
Given his massive muscular strength and the fact that he can easily hold me up scruffed with one hand, he is stronger than me too.
I am wet because I almost drowned. It is also true that I am a lightyear away from where I started.
But I am not going to be his pet.