Chapter 8 #2
Now she inched toward the rear of the flyer, where the exit door was.
The alien markings meant nothing to her but there was also a simple diagram under a panel of buttons and she put her bound hands on the button that appeared to be the right one.
She paused, taking a deep breath. Did she really want to do this?
She couldn’t survive a fall from this altitude.
Glancing at the cockpit door again, she hardened her resolve.
These aliens had destroyed her planet by unleashing a terrifying and macabre virus on the unsuspecting and innocent population.
Who knew what other horrific experiments they might be conducting?
And her blood seemed to contain elements they were avid to get their hands on.
She couldn’t be a part of assisting them to do more damage.
The sound of the cockpit door opening startled her and her hands slipped.
There was an angry shout and one of the aliens rushed toward her.
She hit the button and the exterior door began to slide open, allowing a huge buffeting wind to enter the cabin.
The gap wasn’t big enough for her to throw herself out yet when the man reached her.
She kicked at him and pounded his chest with her bound fists, screaming defiance.
Trying to escape his grasp she stepped closer to the threshold.
Terror and determination gave her extra strength and she wrenched herself free as the door moved enough for her to jump.
But the alien caught her wrists and hung on.
He’d anchored himself inside the flyer somehow so they weren’t both sucked out by the greedy wind.
Melly hung suspended in the air thousands of feet above the surface of the planet, the pressure on her wrists and arms immense.
A second alien joined the first at the door and working together they hauled her back inside despite her struggles.
Exhausted and in pain, she collapsed on the deck of the flyer at their feet as the door closed again. One of the men rolled her onto her back with his foot and leaned over to shake his fist in her face. “Stupid human cow! Were you trying to kill all of us?”
“If I could,” she gasped out.
He clearly wanted to punish her for her escape attempt but the other man spoke to him rapidly in their language and pushed him aside.
He dragged Melly to her feet none too gently and brought her to the first passenger seat close to the cockpit.
Pulling out a stunner, he shot her at point blank range, which hurt and then bound her ankles.
He secured her to the seat with a webbing of straps, studied his handiwork and then left her alone.
The other man came to sit next to her and glowered at her ominously but didn’t touch her.
Melly’s head lolled against the hard cushions and she knew she was crying but there was nothing she could do to stop the sobs. So close. She’d actually tried to kill herself—the idea was unreal but she’d do it again if given the chance. The stakes here were too high.
She had no idea how long it was before the flyer began to descend and landed at their destination.
The aliens freed her from the straps and released her ankles but she was too weak from the stun shot to walk so she was carried out of the flyer and into the fading daylight.
Taking in her surroundings, she saw snow capped mountains all around which meant she was now in the far north.
The chill in the air emphasized that point.
Her captor carried her off the landing pad and toward a sprawling one story building with a camouflaged roof.
They were inside a moment later and he set her on her feet.
“You need to walk,” he said.
Leaning on him although she’d rather not, Melly walked through the gleaming corridor, ignoring curious glances from passersby.
There weren’t many and all were of the alien race, as evidenced by their pale pink hair and distinctive facial features.
In the distance she heard screams but her body was too traumatized from being stunned recently to react to the stimulus.
Her escorts turned at a junction of corridors, entering a less stark area, walking now on a lush carpet.
The walls were wood paneled and there was artwork—alien landscapes and vistas.
Her escort and the man accompanying them halted at a fancy wooden door inscribed in glowing red script in the alien language.
He spoke into a com, glancing at her anxiously and didn’t seem too happy when the door opened.
Grabbing her elbow, he all but dragged Melly inside, his associate following.
This was an antechamber although there was no one at the small desk.
The man holding her didn’t pause but went straight to the next door, gave a cursory knock, took a deep breath and crossed the threshold as soon as the door opened.
A huge, gleaming black stone desk was set across the room and another alien sat in an ornate red and gold chair, drumming his fingers on the polished surface.
Wearing a white jacket festooned with badges and pins, he had towering red hair, a few strands so bright they gave off a faint glow.
He stared at Melly so eagerly she recoiled and dread pooled in her gut.
As he examined her in her disheveled debilitated state, a frown came over his face.
The man and the ones who’d brought her engaged in a short, sharp conversation, during which Melly was thrust into an uncomfortable chair in front of the desk and held here by her guard’s hand clenched painfully on her shoulder.
The person in charge rocked in his chair, steepled his fingers and regarded her dubiously. “So you’re one of those humans.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The troublemaking kind, the ones who resist and fight and scheme. I’ve had experience with your kind before.
” He harrumphed and Melly inferred things hadn’t gone well for him, which lit a small spark of good cheer in the middle of her despair.
“You’ll find I run a disciplined lab here and I don’t tolerate rebellion. ”
Too bad for you. Immediately she decided to be the worst prisoner he’d ever encountered.
“Nothing to say?” he asked, plainly disappointed she wasn’t going to verbally joust with him and allow him to show off his superiority.
A large, fluffy gray and white cat ran into the room, jumping on the desk and rubbing itself against the man’s arm. Melly recoiled, staring at the purring feline. The alien guffawed, a gravelly annoying sound.
“My people don’t keep pets as a rule,” he said.
“Unlike you humans who take animals with you everywhere. This fact made cats a perfect vector to spread the virus in the beginning. You coddle them, feed them, have them on your spaceships—if one of you finds a cat in the wild, you attempt to help it. All points we counted on when selecting them to transmit the virus efficiently.” He scratched the cat’s head and it flopped onto the desk, eyes slitted with pleasure.
“It was easy to release a good number of infected cats close to outlying settlements. But of course the cats had the last laugh as you humans say. They no longer carry the deadly form of the virus. It’s mutated in felines to become benign which would make an interesting area of study if we had the time.
But the humans already infected do an admirable job of spreading the disease now.
But even if Mflorre here was a vector and bit you, or if one of the human infected got their hands on you, you wouldn’t succumb. Not to the virus anyway.”
“I’m immune?”
He nodded. “You have an extremely rare set of genes and fragments and markers. We knew a few humans would have immunity no matter what we designed. The Watchers as I’m told you call them, have as one of their duties to seek out and identify such people and hold them from harm until we can come to collect them.
You kept slipping away, however, until now.
General Quantike earned himself a nice bonus, finding you. ”
With a sinking heart, she tried to take it in. “So that’s what you want me for? To try to break the code I carry?”
“Yes. The initial phases of the project will be quite minimally painful, I assure you. Of course at some point we’ll have a new virus to test on you and then your time will be over.
” He frowned again and glared at the man holding her seated.
“But between the idiots at Glastine and these fools, you’re not in optimal condition to use as a baseline for testing.
Drugs and stun beams were expressly forbidden, yet my orders were violated. ”
“She tried to escape, Dr. Ybidliuz,” the guard protested. “She could have crashed the flyer, opening the hatch in midair. We had no choice.”
“We’ll discuss this later.” The scientist was haughty. “I’ll give you a week, Dr. Jericho, to rest and regain maximum viability as a specimen. In the meantime you can earn your keep working with Dr. Mercattor.”
The name was vaguely familiar to Melly and she wracked her brain for who the person might be. “The head of the human research facility?”
“The same. Our colleague.” He laughed in an unpleasant manner.
The cat meowed and jumped off the desk, rubbing against Melly’s legs before trotting out of the room.
“Not that a mere human could ever hope to approach the level of science where I operate.” He waved one long fingered hand.
“Take her to Rivia’s domain. I have no desire to see her again until a week from now when she needs to appear in my lab healthy. ”