Revenge is Sweet

by Richard Johnson

He laughed and said, “All this time I was speaking Spanglic and you understand English. Now that is curious.” He looked at me in that way he did sometimes, almost like the men in white stared and slowly he` reached out to touch my head. “Probably related to the surgery they did up there. They probably did too much damage and you had to re-learn language and since that is what you heard, that is what you respond to. Unless your Grandparents were American or English.” I felt anger and concern and curiosity from him but now I understood almost all that he said.

  When I was finished he stood and held his hand to me. I had never seen such a kindness and when I gave him mine, he helped me to stand and I saw how different our hands were. Mine was smooth and white and hairless. His was darker and spotty and had hair growing from the back. Then I saw that he only had one thumb and four fingers while I had three fingers and two thumbs. His smallest finger was like my second thumb. I turned and stared at it as if I had seen it for the first time.

  The underside was as white as mine and both had the same lines, he just had only one thumb and hair. Then I looked at his bare feet and mine and saw that his large toe was next to his other toes but mine was nearer to my heel. He couldn’t hold anything with a foot like that. What other differences were there?

  He smiled and said to me, “It’s because your are Weir and I am human. Your grandparents were like me but you and your parents are different. I’ll explain later.” Then he led me outside where he showed me the wood arch and said, “This is a Tori. The Shinto make these to show that this place is sacred to the Gods. This building was once a shrine but has since been abandoned for some reason. I’ve been repairing it as I can but food for you is more important.”

  He showed me the stream where he took water for my drink and meals and bathing and there was a small pond with insects on it. I could see plants in the water and knew that these were a reflection of the plants overhead so I leaned over to see my own face.

  I don’t think I was horrified as much as was he. Anger flowed from him as I touched the scars. His hair was turning white from age but my red hair was only beginning to grow back. “They shaved your head so they could remove your skull easier and play around inside.”

  I saw the scars running around my head, some fresher than others from many times when they went into my brain. I could see my pointed ears and saw his were round. My eyes opened like a cat’s but his were always the same. But both of my antennae was gone, just a fresh scab to show where they had cut them away. They didn’t care about my face, they wanted to see those parts that were different and to see what I looked like inside.

  I needed to see more so I removed the shirt I wore, his shirt and stood there naked. One scar ran down between my breasts. Another couple across my belly but my legs were hairless and free of their attentions. I turned and tried to see my butt which still hurt but couldn’t and when I felt back there, I felt a short tail that moved.

  “They amputated your tail to see how it worked but the Demons gave you a strong regenerative system and you are re-growing everything. All you need is rest, food and sex to regrow and be normal again,” he said to me. I didn’t know what sex was but I knew about food and rest for my protector made certain that I had both so he would give me sex when I needed it too.

  Suddenly tired, I sat, my stub of a tail moving aside as I sat on a rock and I watched the water run over the rocks. “This is why they built the shrine. To the Japanese this place was so beautiful they believed that only the Gods could have made it.” He was a wealth of knowledge but I knew nothing so everything he said was new.

  “What happened to me?” I asked finally.

  He sat and stared at the water then began, “Your family came to Earth for some unknown reason. Maybe they wanted to see your homeworld, maybe they were historians trying to learn about Earthlings, maybe they were tourists. I don’t know. But the government captured them and saw their alienness and got scared. But when humans get scared they tend to kill. So the bad ones decided to torture your family into giving them their knowledge and the good ones simply went along because humans are sheep. They follow the strong and the thought that they are accomplices to evil never enters their minds.

  “I learned about you and managed to free your mother and younger sister. As they were escaping, I returned for you but got caught. So I had to fight free and found a StarGate that brought us here. If you hadn’t been so drugged, we could have ran and joined your mother and gotten away but I couldn’t carry you and protect you and them at the same time so I took the only way I could to get you away. We are on the other side of the planet, perhaps 500 years in the past. When you are strong enough, we’ll go back and join your family and get you off-world.”

  “They did this to me? And my sister and mother and father?”

  “They did. When we get you safe, we will return to punish them for there is no justice in a country when the government is the criminal. And without justice there can only be revenge. But for now, survival is more important.”

  “My father is dead. They took him apart to see how he worked. My sister, they cut her throat so she wouldn’t scream any more. What did they do to my mother?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t have time to ask or read their records but probably much as they did to you. I barely had time to destroy most of their notes and even then, I killed a lot of guards and doctors to get you three out. No loss.” He spat that last.

  “You are like them, but not.”

  “I’ve worn the uniform for more than twenty years, fought with them and for them, defended them but sometimes the greatest patriotism is when you fight back. I couldn’t be a part of that evil and so became a traitor by doing the right thing. I hope they didn’t recognize me or my own family will be in danger.”

  “Are they safe?” I was dead inside but I meant my family, not his.

  “I hope so. When you are ready, we’ll go back and find out and help them.”

  “I’m ready.”

  He laughed. “Not yet. You can barely stand and I cannot save them and keep you and even myself alive until you are fully regenerated. Besides, I am one ageing non-com who took them by surprise and they’ll be prepared the next time with greater numbers and better weapon

  ns. I need time to plan and gather allies.”

  “I can be your ally.” I wanted to hurt them like they hurt me.

  “Child, you are stronger and faster and smarter than any human but you have no training in war. The Demons created you to be a technician, not a soldier.”

  “I can learn. Teach me!” I wouldn’t let him refuse. Whatever it took I would do. I had a purpose. I had to rescue my mother and sister. I had to punish the criminals who did this to us. And I had to stop them from ever doing this again to others.

  He looked into my eyes and softly replied, “Ok, but it isn’t an easy path. Warriors don’t worry about winning or even surviving. They only concern themselves with perfection. Accept that you are already dead and you can focus on the perfection of the move and thus, win.”

  “Like you did with those men? You stopped trying to live and won?”

  “Something like that. For now, rest, recover and when you are ready, we will begin.”

  I thought about that as I watched the spiders run across the water. I knew I was dead. I died under the human knives so this time was a gift. A gift I would use to help my family who still lived.

  So I ate. And slept. And rested. Sometimes I rested and slept in my bed, sometimes in his arms and sometimes by the pond. And I regrew fast. I ate far more than did he and slept constantly and my body repaired itself at a rate I remember being faster than even in the evil place. The humans were amazed at how fast my body healed after they hurt me, but here, with rest and food and no more injuries, I healed faster still. My scars on my chest and belly and scalp healed and faded within a few days to pale lines. My pubes and head grew hair fast and in a few days, my hair
was as long as his. My tail didn’t grow fast though. I needed calcium, he told me, to replace the bones or I’d rob my skeleton for my tail and that would weaken me. So he fished and ground up the bones into a paste for me.

  I ate everything. I didn’t care if it tasted good or bad, I just ate to repair my body as fast as possible and he worked always for me. I never saw him rest. He fished and cooked and farmed and hunted and at night he would fall asleep exhausted with the effort to help me. He lived his life to make mine easier and when I listened to his heart, I could feel its pain. His heartbeat was irregular and when I asked him, he said it was an old injury that never healed properly and laughed as if it were not important.

  After a week I began to notice how good he looked. I watched him in the ocean, wearing just his underwear and caught myself watching his ass as he bent over to pull the net he had made from the water. His body just looked good to me. A part of me saw the wrinkles and scars and still, another part wanted to touch him, to feel his hands on me, gently and maybe even roughly.

  I looked at the heads of the men he had killed resting on those poles he stuck in the sand, the gulls pecking at them and I wanted to do the same to those who had hurt me and the thought that he had betrayed his friends, killed evil men to rescue