How to Make a Hybrid (Hot for Humans #1)

Chapter 1

JAY

Do you know how hard it is to have a wank when an AI assistant is watching you like some sort of advanced intelligence pervert?

It’s extremely hard, and it makes me go soft before I can even say, “Numbers, I’m going to hunt down your source code, and then I’m going to delete it.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt, or to offend, Jaxus,” Numbers, the Derecko spaceship’s AI assistant, tells me, with a tone that sounds convincingly like a concerned middle-aged man with an American accent.

“I was just going to ask if that shirt you’re wearing belongs to Captain Henrix.

He said it went missing from the fitness locker room three days ago. ”

Okay, yes, I’m a pervert too. One who steals shirts that smell bloody wonderful when I put them on and make my entire bed smell like the captain. But it takes one to know one, and right now I feel like another perv is watching me be a perv.

“Numbers, mind your own business,” I warn, climbing out of bed and pulling my underpants up. “Or, one day, I’m telling the Council how you never told them why the captain, commander, and doctor of this ship are insisting on moving me back to Earth.”

It’s because they’re perverts too. Perverts who love me and are afraid they won’t be able to keep their hands off me for much longer.

Humans and Non-human Visitors to the Solar System (or NVs for short) aren’t supposed to get touchy-feely with each other.

A rule imposed by humans, not NVs. The Council (of aliens who make the rules every NV has to follow in their sector of this galaxy) knows about that rule, but they don’t know how much three crew members of the Derecko want to break it while they break me in.

“I was programmed to be loyal to the captain of this ship,” Numbers says flatly. “Some of my discretion might be frowned on, but—”

“Oh, forget it,” I grumble, ripping off the space-hunk scented shirt and throwing it down a dirty laundry chute. “Go tell him what I did, and then tell him to meet me in the pod room if he wants to help me finish what I started.”

“Since the shirt will be cleaned now, and then returned to its rightful owner, I see no need to tell Captain Henrix anything, Jaxus.”

“I see. Now that I want you to tell him, you don’t want to. You’re a jerk and a git.”

“Aren’t those essentially the same thing?”

“Well, I had a British father and an American mum, so I get to say both.”

“American mum,” he repeats with my accent, sounding amused.

“Piss off, you prat!”

I’ve never heard AI sigh, but I swear Numbers does, before he goes silent.

I have a feeling he’s still watching me through the ship’s monitoring system as I put on coveralls and head to the pod room, where a VR pod is going to help me get back in the mood.

Talking about my parents completely turned me off, though, and I really wish Numbers had a physical body so I could deck him for that.

Hating that it’s impossible to tell if he’s really gone, I stumble around the gray pod room after I type in a code on a keypad to let myself in, acting woozy and making a gurgling sound.

“Jaxus, are you in need of medical assistance?”

Now I’m the one who’s sighing. “No. I was just faking that to see if you stopped spying on me. But, while we’re on the subject of assistance, do you know how to fix a heart broken by betrayal?”

“I am not aware of any medical protocols for that.”

“Thought so.”

“I must say, Jaxus, I have done my research and I don’t believe Earth is as unappealing as you make it out to be. Even those who can’t access all the luxuries your species has to offer, can find so much joy in their days with just a good cup of coffee or well written slow-burn fanfic.”

“Fan what now?”

“Oh, Jaxus, there is a whole world out there that you don’t know at all. I’ve found joy in it just through digitally experiencing the day to day lives of humans.”

“But you’ve never experienced an actual day on Earth,” I argue. “Just snapshots of days that people upload and share. You don’t know what it was like there for me, so don’t—”

“Perhaps it was not as bad as you remember. You were very young when you left and the human memory can be—”

“Why don’t we find out?” I snap. “I was about to hop in the VR pod for a more private wank, but I’d rather use it to prove you wrong.” Or possibly prove myself wrong.

A month ago, when I was told I needed to return to Earth soon, that didn’t just break my heart.

It filled me with absolute hopelessness and terror, because I remember it as a place that turns warm, awesome people into cold, hateful shitbags—but maybe I am misremembering some things.

I was really young when I left and the details have gotten fuzzy.

“I want to go back to my last memory of Earth,” I tell the huge, glossy, egg-shaped pod as I flip open the top, then slide inside like I’m getting in one of the Derecko’s escape pods.

I guess this pod can help me escape too, mentally.

It gives the user a fully immersive experience, so once you’re in, it’s like you’re really wherever you asked it to take you, and it uses your imagination, memories, or both to piece together a realistic virtual world.

A world which it can create by accessing all the information you’ve stored in your brain since you were born, including a more accurate version of events than you can recall on your own.

I close the top, sealing myself in and shutting my eyes in darkness, then open them in a dusty room, where I’m just a wee little bloke called James—and I’m super gay already—and super into men who are not Earthlings.

A gorgeous purple one is on TV, and my heart beats fast whenever he stares into the camera like he’s speaking directly to Little Gay James.

I don’t know what the pure white cloud that floats around him means, but I will learn about them soon.

“We mean you no harm,” he assures me.

“Liar!” My father shouts from the couch I couldn’t sit still on, and loads his rifle.

Little Me wants to believe the alien, but he’s a stranger. All I know about him is he’s fit, and I would like to hold his hand. But Dad is Dad, so I have to take his side.

It’s the only one I can choose as he puts on his pilot jacket, bends down to kiss my forehead, then walks out of the house.

Gripped by pride and fear, I rise from the round sunken spot my backside left in our thick carpet, near the telly, and watch him from a window as he marches toward the bare strip of land we use as a runway, in the English countryside where all my days were spent before first contact.

Dad gets into his tiny private plane and takes off for the night shift patrol he agreed to start, every day, at sunset, to watch the skies for invader activity.

I don’t want to relive what will happen a few minutes later, when I’m sitting around and hoping nothing bad will happen to him, as the purple alien continues speaking.

Someone screams something at the purple man that bothers my mother. That’s when she tells me to go to my room, on the other side of the house, having no idea that she just saved my life.

I blink rapidly to skip past all of that, and the crash, and a scream that sent a chill down my spine. I won’t carry her scream with me for the rest of the day, but I do want to relive the part when a red-skinned giant pulls me out of a burning house that is full of smoke.

I go through that moment again with burning eyes, tasting the smoke, just to feel myself in his arms for the first time once more.

Then he takes me to a craft that landed near the airstrip.

The massive, glowing spaceship looks like something that came out of the video games my father hated me playing.

Everything behind us is chaos as the house collapses in on itself, but I feel safe in the giant’s arms. So safe I never want to leave them.

I feel like shutting the pod down right then and getting out before the next part, but I force myself to rush through the rest, letting a sped-up Captain Henrix calmly but gravely inform me that my father must have spotted them on their way to a diplomatic meeting, with humans, that was supposed to take place at a remote location.

The captain explains that he probably feared the NVs had come to destroy, or invade, our land and had a heart attack. That was why he lost control of his plane and crashed into our house. It happened so quickly, the NVs didn’t have time to stop him, and barely had enough time to save me.

Hex tells the same thing to the human authorities who he takes me to, and even though I believe him, they don’t. They all question his story, eyes full of distrust, and look at me with the same deep, unwavering suspicion.

Their tense and frightened faces are the last thing I see before I shut down the pod. But I remember a lot more faces like that looking down at me as several cowardly bastards refused to help a fellow Earthling.

They all feared something had been done to Little Gay James. That I was not still fully human or safe. So, the NVs kept me on their ship, and changed my name to one that was more familiar to them, treating me like one of their own.

“That was fast, Jaxus,” Numbers comments as I leave the pod room.

“I just wanted to pop in and out of that memory long enough to see if I’ve been remembering Earth wrong,” I explain.

I had to be sure I wasn’t misremembering how certain my father was that the aliens—who took me in after his death—were evil, and the pod confirmed he wasn’t just being cautious that night.

Nor was he on edge for an actual reason that could be backed up with facts and logic.

Without any evidence, he was convinced that they meant to harm us, and years later nothing had changed.

The same fear that made decisions for those humans, during my last days on Earth, rules over them now.

“You look pale, Jaxus,” Numbers says. “It might be wise to pay a visit to Dr. Xan before you start your chores for the day.”