by Tammy Walsh
Why did I get the feeling this was scripted? That this creature had said these words many times over in the past?
“You were both chosen for a very unique and important purpose,” Quus said. “You’ve been chosen to partake in one of the noblest causes there is… Entertainment!”
The walls flickered into life as hundreds, then thousands, of Changelings appeared. They were not holographic projections like Quus. They were regular screen images.
“How about we show them what we think of them, fellow Lovers’ Escape fans?”
The crowd roared. As one, they morphed into replicas of me and Chax. And when I say morphed, I mean, full-on Mystique from the X-Men movies style morphed. They looked identical to us. I couldn’t even tell the difference.
I gripped Chax’s hand between both of mine. I’d never seen anything like this before. It was terrifying.
The crowd roared with adulation as they waved their placards above their heads:
WE LOVE YOU, MADDY!
SEXY CHAX! BE MY SAVIOR!
“These are your fans,” Quus said. “And they’ve been watching you every minute of every day since you first popped up on our screens.”
I gulped.
“Screens?” I said.
“You’re the stars in our breakout hit show, Lovers’ Escape! Wave! You’re live to over fifteen billion Changeling viewers throughout the galaxy!”
I just gawped. Chax reacted better than I did and waved absentmindedly. I did the same.
They’ve been watching us? Then that means…
They watched us have vigorous sex last night. But there was no way they would show that on TV.
“Now, we’ve had active contestants before but we’ve never seen anything quite so smokin’ hot as we did last night!” Quus said. “Have we, viewers?”
The crowd roared with excitement.
“I imagine we’ll be expecting a boost in reproduction yields this cycle for sure!” Quus said. “But things didn’t begin quite so hot and steamy for you, did they?”
Half the screens switched over to images of me when I first appeared in the room. I wandered around, lost, and alone.
“Hello?” I said. “Is anyone there?”
Half the crowd of creatures performed their version of my terror, copying every step and subtle cadence of my voice.
“Hello?” they said. “Is anyone there?”
“And then, of course, you met your partner, Chax,” Quus said.
The images flicked over to the highlights of me leaping out of bed and sliding across the floor on my ass. Then me arming myself with a pen and piece of paper and aiming it at Chax, who was still groggy with sleep.
The presenter chuckled and hid his smile behind his cue cards.
Chax’s taut muscles were on show for everyone with eyes to see. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous—he was mine!
“Your romance didn’t take off on the right foot,” Quus said, “and we began to fear things might not work out after all.”
On the screen, we argued and my expression of rage was truly an ugly thing. I felt a little embarrassed at my reaction—even though it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Our audience appeared to enjoy it.
While they were mesmerized by our memories replaying on the screen, I tapped on the back of Chax’s hand in tap code. He was new to it, so I tapped slowly. He made no sign he felt it but his attention shifted slightly in my direction.
WHAT IS GOING ON, I said.
I DONT KNOW, he said. WATCH.
“And then, of course,” Quus said, “we watched as you fell in love.”
There was a collective sigh—what sounded like a chittering noise—as the audience gazed in silence as, on the screen, I kissed Chax on the lips and shoved him back and straddled him.
Whew. I sure was aggressive.
Chax stood staring at the screen, as mesmerized as the audience was. But they wouldn’t show the full video. It was too x-rated for that—
They showed his hard throbbing cock sliding inside me. And if they showed that, they could show pretty much anything…
“And you turned out to be a real firecracker, didn’t you, Maddy?” Quus said, fanning himself with his cue cards. “I don’t know about you guys at home, but I sure cuddled up close to my wife that night!”
On screen, I moaned and groaned—Too noisy, girl! Get on with it!—as he pumped me harder.
Chax looked good—he looked really good. He had the body and confidence for these kinds of movies.
Me on the other hand…
Oh, dear. That was a bad angle. My ass looked huge and for a moment, I wished they’d told me they were going to film me. My first porno movie and it broke the viewership ranking of every homemade Earth porno movie ever made.
I could at least feel a little proud of that, couldn’t I?
No, not really. We’d been coerced. We’d been put together in that room because they expected us to have sex.
That’s why I was wearing the negligee when I awoke, why he was half-naked.
They organized for this to happen.
Suddenly, the memory of the event turned sour in my mouth and it didn’t feel so special anymore—not least because fifteen billion alien creatures had also shared it.
This was surreal. Bizarre. Crazy.
I must be in a nightmare. This couldn’t be happening. I’d just had the best sex of my life. Maybe Chax had fucked me into a coma and I was still there.
That had to be it. There was no way this could be real.
“And now we very much look forward to watching you on the next part of your journey together,” Quus said. “I hope it’s every bit as spicy. Tell me, how does it feel to be live on intergalactic Changeling television?”
I just stared at the hologram and my eyes flickered to the creatures watching on the huge wall screens.
“Uh, strange,” I said.
The crowd burst into laughter.
“Strange, she said!” Quus said. “She could have felt bewildered. She could have felt excited or terrified… but instead, she tells us she feels strange! I think we’re going to need to keep a close eye on you, aren’t we, Maddy?”
He leered at me.
We were now famous. Mega-famous. And it suddenly occurred to me that with fame came power. Maybe we could use it to our advantage.
I affixed a grin to my face.
“I’m really excited to be here!” I said, taking a step forward.
Chax glanced at me and shook his head in warning.
“What are you doing?” he hissed out the corner of his mouth.
He tried to grab my hand but I’d already raised them to address our adoring crowd.
“I appreciate you guys and your support!” I said. “But what we’d really like is to be let out of here so we can go home.”
Quus glared at me. His eyes flickered over to Chax and then back to me again. His smile faltered and then grew wider on his face.
“Of course!” he said. “And that’s just what you’ll be doing once you’re out of that stuffy old room and traversing the landscape of ancient Grimaldon!”
The crowd roared. Chax grabbed my hand and pulled me back.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“I’m trying to get us out of here!” I said.
“They’re not going to let us go!” he said. “Not ever! Don’t you get it? These are Changelings. They have no sense of mercy, no sense of decency. Not a single shred in any of them!”
There was a flash of something in his face. A flash of horror, of desperation. He knew a lot more about these creatures than he was letting on.
“Play along if you want to live,” he said. “And if we’re very, very lucky, we might just survive.”
I gulped. Survive?
What sort of show was this?
He raised a hand to the crowd and smiled. I hesitated, feeling sick to my stomach at his warning. Then I followed suit and shared in the wave.
“
On the tabletop in front of you, you’ll find your equipment for the journey ahead,” Quus said. “These items are what you’ll take with you. Where, you ask? To your shuttlecraft!”
The image on the screen shifted and displayed a small spaceship. I’d never seen a real one before but I’d seen plenty in science fiction movies. It was larger than a private plane, but not by much. It had a shorter wingspan and the engines were located in the belly of the ship and not on the wings. It was perched on a flat field with a raised slope around it.
“Reach the shuttlecraft and you’re free!” Quus said. “But you’ll have to be quick! You have only twenty-four hours to reach it. After that, you’ll be disqualified from the show.”
Disqualified from the show? Didn’t that mean we’d get to go home?
No. In this topsy turvy world, “disqualified” had a very different meaning…
“But don’t forget,” Quus said. “You won’t be alone out there. We’ve dispatched some of our finest trackers to hunt you down. So, you won’t only be trying to escape, you’ll be fighting to escape with your lives! Are you ready? Are you steady?”
The crowd was going nuts. Thousands of them, all with my or Chax’s appearance, screaming and waving their placards in the air.
“No, wait!” I said.
“And away you go!” Quus said.
The lights flicked off. The roaring crowd and holographic presenter faded away and disappeared in an instant. For a moment, we were left in total darkness.
And then a finger of light spilled from a new doorway. It crept open, spilling the morning of a new and alien world into the room.
I blinked against the sudden bright light. I blocked it with my hand over my eyes. Beyond was a cloudy sky and trees waving in the wind.
Chax was already stripping off and slipping on the suit on the table. It was tight and clung to his muscular frame. He picked up the electronic device and attached it to a special hook at his side.
I was in a daze.
“I… I don’t understand what’s happening,” I said.
“It’s the Changelings,” Chax said. “This is what they do. They abduct people and play games with them. Trials for their entertainment. They use them any way they want, like slaves, because as far as they’re concerned, we belong to them and we’re worth nothing. Still, we’re lucky to be here.”
“Lucky?” I said, barely aware of my rising voice. “How is this lucky?”
“We could have been taken for experimentation or sold to the sex houses,” he said. “At least this way we have a chance of escape.”
“I… I can’t do this,” I said, backing away from the door. “I want to go home. This can’t be happening.”
“Hey,” Chax said, wrapping his arms around me and kissing me gently. “The only way out of here is if we work together. We have to reach that shuttlecraft they showed us. Then we can go home.”
“But there are people out there looking for us,” I said. “These trackers. Why are they trying to hunt us down?”
“To make the show more interesting,” Chax said. “That’s their purpose. Ours is to find that shuttlecraft and get away from here. We can do it. We’ve got almost twenty-four hours to reach it. And look.”
He picked up a little device. It showed a rough map of the area and a blinking light some distance away.
“We just need to get to this blinking light,” he said. “That’s where the shuttlecraft is. Then we can get out of here. Come on. I need your help.”
He was right. There was no way we were getting out of there if we didn’t work together. The only other option was to refuse to play along with the Changeling’s stupid game. I doubted that would end well.
I nodded.
“Okay,” I said.
He wrapped a comforting arm around me.
“Good girl,” he said. “Let’s put these things on and get out of here.”
He picked up the suit and unzipped the back.
I was about to open my nightgown when I noticed him looking at me.
“What?” he said.
“Turn around,” I said.
“It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”
“It’s not the same.”
He tickled my cheek with a gloved finger.
“Let me see you one more time,” he said. “Just in case.”
“In case what?” I said. “In case we don’t make it out of here alive?”
“We will make it out of here,” he said. “It was my ham-fisted excuse for wanting to see you naked. Throw a guy a bone.”
Despite myself, I smiled. I even managed a chuckle.
“Men are all the same,” I said. “No matter what species they are, they can only think of one thing.”
“Not one thing,” he said, dragging his eyes over my body. “Several different things.”
I slapped him on the arm and began to undress. I kept my eyes on him as I did. I let the nightgown slip to the floor. I stood with my hands on my hips.
He growled in the back of his throat.
“Happy now?” I said.
“There’s only one way for me to be happy with you naked like this,” he said, his eyes roving around my outline.
“Shame we don’t have time for that,” I said, reaching for my suit.
He pulled it away.
He gently rubbed my nipple. It sent goosebumps popping up over my body. I shivered and pulled back from him. Then he lowered his lips to my nipples and pinched them with his lips, licking them with his tongue.
My eyes rolled back and I groaned.
“Aren’t you worried about these trackers showing up?” I said.
“They’ll give us a head start,” Chax said.
“Are you sure about that?”
“The Changelings might not have much mercy but they know plenty about prolonging the agony.”
I grew slick at his touch. Considering our lives were on the line, that really was something. Or maybe it only enhanced the excitement.
“Okay, okay,” he said, pulling back and shaking his head. “We’d better, uh, focus.”
He knelt and held the suit out for me to slip my feet into. As he rose up my leg, he couldn’t help but kiss me along the inside of my thigh. He did the same with the other leg.
The guy was insatiable.
And I was already wet for him, so what did that make me?
He drew the rest of the suit up, running his hands over my stomach and breasts. I slid my arms into it and raised my hair back so he could zip me up the back.
“How do I look?” I said.
He stood back and admired me.
“Hot,” he said.
He picked up the shuttlecraft location device item from the table and attached it to my suit.
“Our location devices are identical,” he said. “In case we get separated, keep heading toward it and I’ll meet you there.”
My heart was in my throat.
“Separated?” I said. “Why would we get separated?”
“Hopefully we won’t,” he said. “It’s just in case.”
Nervous, I bit my lip.
“Are you sure we have to do this?” I said. “What if we stay here and defend ourselves? We could dig our way through the wall and stay in that room together. Maybe they won’t expect that.”
Chax ran a thumb over my cheek.
“They’re Changelings,” he said. “They expect everything.”
He took my hand and squeezed it.
“We can do this,” he said. “I know we can. We just need to work together.”
He led us out into the bright outdoors of an alien world and the site of our game of death.
I’d had better mornings.
The countryside rolled over endless hills and small gangs of trees huddles in secret huddles that dotted the open field we walked through.
I wondered if the Changelings could see us here as they had in our room. I was certain they could. The idea I was in an alien reality TV show had, unsurprisingly,
never occurred to me before. Thinking back, I couldn’t place the camera locations. They must have been so small they were virtually invisible.
Now I was the star of a hit dystopian show. I always thought taking part in reality television would be fun. To claim my fifteen minutes of fame. But now I was there, I didn’t think it was very fun at all.
Especially not with my life on the line.
Our task was simple. Get to the beacon the devices at our hips indicated within the next twenty-four hours and leave this place. It was the best motivator I could think of.
“We should run,” I said. “We can get there in half the time.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it?” Chax said.
“You might have worn me out last night but I still have a little left in the tank.”
I heard a growl in the back of his throat.
“I’m going to have to make sure to give you both barrels next time,” he said.
I wasn’t sure I could stand it—I barely managed to survive last time.
But I was certainly up for the challenge.
We began at a gentle jog. It took a little time to get into a rhythm. Chax looked surprised I kept pace alongside him.
The field came to an end at a narrow stream that divided this field from the next one. It tinkled softly.
“Do you think it’s clean?” I said.
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said.
He dropped down to his hands and knees and cupped a handful of it. He sniffed it, eyeballed it, listened to it—that last one came as a surprise—and then finally tasted it.
He nodded.
“It’s clean,” he said.
I supped as much as I could without bloating myself. I wiped an arm across my mouth and followed Chax up the opposite bank.
He dropped down onto his front and peered over the side.
“Why are you crawling around?” I said.
“The trackers will be out looking for us by now,” he said. “Best not to draw attention to ourselves.”
He focused on the sprawling countryside below. Nestled between two hills and half-shrouded in mist was a small farm. The paint was faded and half the windows were smashed. The barn looked in better condition with a newly-tarred roof and a fresh lick of paint.
“What do these trackers get out of this?” I said. “Maybe we can do a deal with them.”
