Chapter 15
Blair
I answered her question with one of my own. “Why can I understand you when we never kissed?”
The way Dory had explained it to me in the cages, the symbiote couldn’t transfer without mouth-to-mouth contact. As nasty as it was. The useful little parasite sure did make communication easier, but I wish I didn’t have to French kiss a lion to get it.
Such was life.
Or, I guess I should say, second life. From what she said, the Biwban had gone through great lengths to only take women who were already about to die for their little breeding experiment.
My eyes glazed over when Intern tried to explain the ins and outs of the time manipulation devices they used, but it was something about respecting the delicate balance of Earth’s ecosystem or other such nonsense.
As if they didn’t have to fly past a sea of space debris and Elon’s stupid fucking red car to get here.
The Biwban had done more than just steal us away. They’d done something to modify us while we were in stasis so we’d be able to breed with the Sankado. Who knew what else they’d already done and decided to omit from us.
My stomach clenched.
If I had slipped up and actually had sex with Osid, I could have gotten pregnant.
Pregnant! By the biggest asshole this side of the galaxy, no less!
The thought alone set off a dull ache behind my eyes. When Dory had asked me how long I had been in that cage, I was too embarrassed to tell her it took all of six hours on an alien planet for me to go slobbering on the meat knob of the first jackass that fed me a fruit tart.
God, I gotta get my life together.
Of all the terrible bullshit men that must be on this planet, how did I end up landing next to the stage-five clinger with an army at his beck and call?
Ninety-nine point seven three percent compatibility rating my genetically modified ass.
“Why I can speak is not important,” said the clerk.
“It is to me.”
Biwban didn’t appear to have the ability to move their eyes in their sockets, so the clerk was technically unable to roll her eyes at me, but the way she turned her head toward me and stared gave me the impression that the expression was heavily implied.
“As you are well aware, Subject 4 was exposed to a translation symbiote while she was on the transport ship. Somehow, that symbiote was able to alter itself to figure out your primitive language. Something we previously didn’t believe was possible.
As such, her symbiote has been scanned into our database.
Making the rest of us able to download your language into our own symbiotes directly from the network, rather than relying on physical transfer. ”
When I didn’t respond right away, the clerk clacked her wide beak, drawing my attention to the wide, unsettling black pits of her eyes.
“Subject 12, if there is any hope of salvaging your happily ever after, then we must find the exact circumstances that lead to your affection meter reaching…” she trailed off, then flapped her wing on the pristine white desk that separated us.
Tiny fingers closed around the honeycomb Tamagotchi as she brought it up for a look.
Her feathers flattened with a shudder. “Negative three.”
“Ugh!” I groaned. “I told you freaks already, it was self-defense! The guy chained me to a damn triceratops.”
Her voice maintained its monotone as she asked, “Which was before or after you shot him?”
“AT!” I let my head fall back on the chair, languishing in envy for the days when I had full use of my arms. “I shot AT him. The bullet never made contact. Why are you asking me these questions like I’m the crazy one?
He kidnapped me, locked me in a cage, tied me to a dinosaur, and tried to use me for political gain.
The total play-by-play is unnecessary. Some fuck shit happened and I decked him.
Now let me out of here.” I wiggled against my restraints to drive home the point.
The clerk paid no mind as she typed my response into the screen.
“You know we can’t do that yet. Many animals take time to adjust to their new environment, especially if their augmentation is interrupted as yours was.
Once we take steps to de-escalate your flight-or-flight response, we will see about releasing the restraints. ”
“Oh come on, stop acting like I’m some dangerous animal. I fought with Osid out of self-defense. I haven’t done anything to you Biwban.”
The clerk lowered her screen to peer at me.
“Subject 12, when you awoke from stasis, you picked up the security officer and bludgeoned Dr. Kreelo with him. You are also directly responsible for the deaths of two Hatzegopteryx, and from the looks of this report, completely altered the mating habits of a herd of Parasaurolophus.”
“I didn’t catch half those words, but I damn sure didn’t mess with any dinosaurs gettin’ it on.”
With an owlish blink, the clerk pressed a button on her screen.
It then switched to a video of me half naked singing “At Last” by Etta James to a group of swaying dinosaurs.
The video fast-forwarded to a male playing an obvious copy of the song through his head crest. Smaller females crowded around him and began singing backup.
“That’s right, get your man, Debra!” I screamed, somewhere off camera.
“I…have no memory of that.” Damn, that was some strong acid.
“Possible cognitive malfunctions aside, you and your mate clearly are not getting along. Corrective measures must be taken.”
“Wait, how do y’all even know about what happened after I left the ship?”
She pressed a button on her desk without answering, and my chair floated off the ground and flew out of the room, and I was once again stuck with the feeling that it would have been better if I had just let that damn snake bite me during the concert.
Dying on stage would’ve been the poetic way to go.
Musicians who died young were often talked about with a cultlike reverence.
I could get behind having a cult. At least everybody knew your name.
Naturally I would’ve been pissed at my death at first, and whoever was waiting for me on the other side would have to hear me bitch about it for a hot minute.
But if I had the choice between fire and ice and all that end-of-life poetry shit, I think I would’ve wanted to go out with a bang.
If only I’d actually died.
The chair brought me to another sterile room reeking of antiseptic chemicals and cotton candy.
Why did all Biwban smell like cotton candy?
A brown Biwban came in shortly after and placed two fingers on the pulse of my wrist. Symbols flashed across the big computer screen and took up most of the back wall of the infirmary.
Her odd little talons poked into my skin, causing goosebumps to rise along my arm.
“Stop touching me with your weird, gross baby hands.”
“Subject’s vitals are fine,” she said, ignoring me.
Her spotted sparrow-like coloring set her apart from the more vibrantly colored Biwban I was used to seeing.
The ones who dragged me in here were a bright green and a red.
Even that intern guy who shot me was an electric shade of blue.
Yet both doctors I’d seen were darker in color.
The last one was almost pitch-black, much like a raven with a wider beak.
“Why are your feathers so dull?”
She shot me a look and roughly removed the IV from my arm.
That struck a nerve. The first I’d been able to get from any of them all morning.
So far I’d been sprayed with a disinfectant ray, shoved into a healing pod, asked about fifteen different times what fruit I’d touched within the last twenty-four hours, and had been poked and prodded until their system had everything from my shoe size to my cholesterol level.
“Look at the screen,” she said, monotone.
Osid’s face appeared on the screen, gold fangs flashing in a grin like he was posing to be the pot-stirring industry plant on the next season of The Bachelor.
“Fuck that screen, and fuck you for showing it to me.”
And fuck him for being hot enough to make that work.
God, the teal eyes and dark skin combo was a weakness I never saw coming.
His hair was kept in a mohawk twist, framed with diabolical-looking jagged ram horns.
Since when was I into horns? You know what?
Doesn’t matter. I hate that guy. Kidnapping, gun stealing, psychotic prick.
The honeycomb-colored Tamagotchi around my neck buzzed angrily. The little pixel man fell, slumped over the affection bar next to him. A glowing red light blinked over the bottom bar.
“Hmm, that is your mate, yes?” the doctor asked.
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” I replied, drawing out the word to emphasize my point. “I never agreed to that.” Nor did I agree to be abducted in the first place, but that’s neither here nor there. Nobody’s brought out butt probes yet, so I guess I’ll call that win.
She nodded. “We understand that this change could be difficult for you, but Subject 4 has responded very well to her mates. Perhaps with a slower introduction—”
“Yeah, I’m gonna stop you right there. Dorothy,” I said, stressing out the name.
“I’m gonna say that again because you keep referring to her like a test subject, Dorothy, is getting along with her mates.
That doesn’t mean I, Blair, am going to get along with the first asshole you guys saddled me with.
No amount of slow introductions is going to make me want to make babies with that guy. ”
A gritty hate fuck maybe. With a gag firmly in place so he can’t ruin it with his stupid mouth.
“Hmm.” A cord with a suction cup on the end was pulled from the array of strange alien equipment above my chair and pressed against my temple.
In the next moment, my mind was racing through memories of my exes.
The blind date at the aquarium I had with the pretty blond my cousin worked with, the hot quickie I had backstage after a show in Chicago with my ex Kallum.
I remembered that night vividly, as right after our little tryst, he slipped away to the bathroom, leaving his unlocked phone right next to me.
Was it wrong to snoop? Yes. But I knew that bastard was cheating.
The memory flicked by in seconds before it was replaced by Porsha’s sister Cali and me sharing an ice-cream cone on the beach.
Once I realized what was happening, I yanked the dang thing off my head, and slapped it on hers.
“No!” she screamed, far too late. It had only taken her a second to jerk away, but I saw the screen flash with memories of her own. She bristled, and cuffs shot out of the chair and snatched my wrists down to my sides.
“Hypocrite.”
She closed her eyes and looked away. Dr. Sparrow was back to professional apathy just after she smoothed a wing down her feathers. “Your memories show that you’ve gone through periods of being mated to several partners before. Both male and female. Are you out of season for males?”
“Are you asking me if I’m a seasonal lesbian?”
She merely blinked at me.
“Yes, I’m out of season for males. I can only take dick once every two years. It’s a medical condition, you see.”
Her brow furrowed. “Hmm, your last male was only a month ago.”
“I’m aware.”
“Our mission cannot wait two years to see results. We need all mated females to begin reproducing as soon as possible to help establish a sustainable population for the Sankado. If this is a medical condition, then perhaps we can find a cure. Can you describe the conditions that lead you to enter your next cycle?”
“Of course,” I nodded. “It was on the blood moon of the fourth month of a wombat’s second cycle. The high order shines a beacon off the Great Wall of China to alert me.” I looked out the window and scanned the horizon. “And I see no beacon.”
Tiny fingers flew furiously over her keyboard. “Subject needs…beacon to trigger male season.”
It’s so cute when they’re dumb.
An enraged yellow Biwban slammed the door open with a shout. “YOU CHEATED ON ME?!”
The doc gave a long, suffering sigh. “Not now, Din.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Gendula! I saw you on the memory log, the entire department did!”
My jaw was on the floor. The entire department? The money I would’ve paid to see that in real time. Just Gendula’s cheating ass up on the big screen for the whole operation to see. Served her right.
“Din, be reasonable. The memory converter was only on my head for a moment. You above all of us should know it needs at least five minutes to get an accurate reading.”
Oh, this gaslighting little Biwban.
“Don’t try to soothe me with your LIES! How long has this been going on? Are there others? By the Allmother’s tail feathers, tell me you used protection!”
She shot me a scathing look.
I shook my head at her. “How could you, Gendula?”
Screeching, Din tugged at the feathers on his cheeks until I thought he’d pluck them off. “You see?! Even the human doesn’t believe you.”
“That’s right, Din,” I said. “Don’t let her turn you around. You deserve better than this.”
“No, he doesn’t,” the doctor snapped. Then her eyes went wide at her words.
“I mean…” she trailed off, before her crest feathers flattened against her skull.
She turned back to Din and shouted, “You are interrupting releasement procedures. Return to your department, and we can discuss this private matter later.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, missy. You got me poked and prodded like a fifth-grade science project.
I deserve a little give-and-take. And Din here,” I said, flicking a finger toward the enraged man in the doorway, “deserves some answers. Din, be a doll and fly over here and release the cuffs. I’ll hold her down while you put the memory converter on her until we get some answers. ”
Din clenched his fists and looked between us as if considering my plan.
Before he could come to a conclusion, the good doctor had had enough since to slam a fist down on a button at the top part of my chair.
More restraints shot out to wrap around my middle before the chair lifted from the ground and spun me toward the back door. “Hey!” I called out.
“That’s enough for you,” the doctor snapped. “We’ll set to work on establishing a plan to reintegrate you with the rest of the humans. In the meantime, you’ll be released into a soft enclosure with your mate. For your sake, try to get along.”