Bound by Fate

by Maddie Taylor

  Braving the cold, she stuck her head out the door, looking both ways. With a light snow falling and the temperature below freezing, few people were on the streets. An occasional hover car passed on Main Street, but none turned and headed her way.

  She was about to go in where it was warm, when she heard a faint mewling sound over the wind. Moving farther out on the side walk, she paused to listen more closely. It seemed to be coming from the alley between the clinic and the building under construction next door—what would eventually become a dispensary of herbs and medicines. Adria started that way, cautiously peeking around the corner first. When she didn’t see anything, she blamed it on the wind and her tiredness.

  But as she turned to leave, a white lump on the ground halfway down moved.

  “Help, please.”

  Naturally, she rushed down the alleyway to do so.

  “Amy?” she gasped, falling to her knees beside the redhead, eyes immediately assessing for signs of injury—cuts, contusions, bleeding, and the like. “Where are you hurt?”

  She didn’t find anything unusual until her gaze dropped to her hands, one of which held a photon blaster trained on her.

  “What’s going on?”

  The woman sat up, moving easily, and she laughed, a malevolent sound sending chills down her spine more so than the gun aimed point blank at her chest. The next moment, a stream of green shot out and a searing pain engulfed her, but only for moment because she knew blissful nothingness the next.

  PRESSING THE BUZZER for a third time had the same result as knocking—no answer.

  Beck glanced at his watch. The clinic had closed two hours ago; Adria should have been home before now. Forgotten were the groceries bags with fixings for the chicken enchiladas he’d promised her.

  The lift behind him dinged. He glanced at the doors, expecting to see Adria step out, but when they slid open, Remus came rushing out holding the back of his head. He appeared to be in a considerable amount of pain and had a large discolored lump above his left eye.

  “What happened to you?”

  He skidded to a halt when he saw Beck. “A blow to the head from behind. The who, how, and why, I’ve yet to ascertain.”

  “Why are you holding the back of your head when it’s obviously your eye,” he countered.

  “I got hit in the back. I fell on my face.” A look of chagrin crossed the warrior’s face. He wasn’t happy he’d allowed someone to get a jump on him.

  Beck grunted in sympathy.

  “Thank you for seeing Adria home.”

  He immediately stiffened. “I didn’t walk her home. I haven’t seen her all day. We were supposed to have dinner together.”

  Remus stared at him unblinking for a moment then unhooked a communicator from his belt. “I came directly here, figuring she’d given up on me by now. If she’s been waiting at the clinic all this time, I don’t anticipate her mood to be pleasant when I arrive.” The handheld device beeped when he flipped it open and he punched in a code. A moment later, an artificial voice stated, “No answer from Adria of Valkerr.”

  Something new he learned today, Primarians had last names, sort of.

  Frowning down at the device he suggested aloud, “Maybe, when I didn’t show, rather than walk home in the snow alone, she went home with a friend. Activate locator,” he ordered the device. “Find Adria.”

  “That’s odd,” he stated when a map appeared. Beck glanced at it and saw a flashing green light in the center.

  “What’s odd,” he asked, a sense of unease overtaking him.

  “It says she’s at the clinic. If so, why doesn’t she answer?” Remus waved his hand over the sensor that summoned the lift. Beck picked up his bags and, when the doors slide open, he joined him.

  The younger man glanced at him in surprise. “You’re coming, Kincaid?”

  “Yeah. No sense in you having to bring her back here.” He raised his hands to indicate the overstuffed linen grocery bags. “Plus, this meat will keep better outside in the cold than in this warm hallway.”

  “I didn’t know Adria could cook.”

  “What makes you think she’ll be cooking?”

  “You mean you can?”

  Beck chuckled at the stunned expression on the warrior’s face. “Where I’m from, some of the finest chefs are men. While I don’t rise to that level, after years as a bachelor, and before that, married to a woman who couldn’t follow a recipe for boiling water, it was either learn to cook or go hungry. Mexican food is a favorite of mine, and it’s especially easy. Mix some spices with chicken or beef in a hot skillet of oil, add beans, cheese, and salsa and wrap it in a soft tortilla then enjoy. A man can only take so much of Milton’s fine cuisine.”

  “I hear that,” Remus grumbled. “In the few months I’ve been here, I’ve had a lifetime of dry burgers and greasy fries from the diner. Me and Tarus have resorted to shuttling up to the ship for meals.”

  The lift arrived, and they got on.

  “Beans, cheese and spicy chicken, you say? You wouldn’t have enough for three, would you?”

  The man looked so eager, Beck hated to disappoint him, but a third wheel for dinner with Adria wasn’t part of his plan.

  “Sorry. Not this time. Though when I make burritos again, you’re both invited.”

  Since Remus came on foot, Beck drove them to the clinic. The roads were snow-covered and slick, but the beauty of a hover car—no traction required.

  When they pulled up at the front door, the lobby lights were on, but the closed sign was in the window. A quick search showed no signs of Adria.

  Remus referred to the locator map again. “It says she’s right here.”

  Beck glanced over and watched the green indicator flashing for a moment. “Or maybe her communicator is here.”

  He shook his head. “She wouldn’t be so careless as to go off and leave it. General Trask would have a fit if he found out.”

  “Then the locator is malfunctioning,” he concluded as he turned, scanning the lobby and reception area. “Because she’s not here.” He went out the door and looked at the ground. The snow, which showed no signs of slowing, had almost covered up the faint footprints leading away from the door. If he hadn’t known what to look for, he’d have missed them. Remus who wasn’t used to winter weather, likely would have.

  He followed them to the corner and made the turn into the alley. Halfway down, he found more half-covered indentations, but here, there were two sets.

  “Remus,” he shouted to be heard over the whistling wind.

  When the echo stopped rebounding off the outer building walls, he heard a faint buzzing noise. Walking around with his eyes fixed to the ground, it took a minute, but he found the source. He bent and picked it up just as Remus came striding up.

  “Faex,” the young warrior muttered. “That’s Adria’s communicator.”

  “Yes, but where is she?”

  They both looked at the ground, reading the signs.

  “There’s been a struggle,” Beck announced with mounting dread.

  “Agreed. Notice how there are two sets of footprints arriving but only one leaving. He carried her away.”

  They started following the trail, but once they got outside the cover of the alley the tracks disappeared. Blowing, swirling snow, caused by the chill wind, whipped down the street.

  “Dammit,” Beck bit out as he peered in both directions. Judging by the barely detectible footprints, her attacker had an hour head start on them, maybe more. “What now?”

  “We search. I’ll alert Tarus to activate all warriors on the colony, and the captain of the Intrepid to send reinforcements. The computer surveillance might also give us a clue.”

  “This was plotted. He knocked you out to eliminate your interference.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  “But why? Who would do this?” he asked, though he knew Remus didn’t have the answers either.

  PAIN COURSING THROUGH every corpuscle of her body jarred her fr
om darkness into waking. Her skin burned, her bones ached, her muscles screamed, even breathing was a taxing, agonizing effort. She willed herself back to blissful unconsciousness, but it didn’t come. With little choice except to endure, Adria forced her eyes open.

  She moaned when that small movement hurt.

  Lying on her back on a hard surface, she stared at the ceiling above her, trying to figure out where she was. The only light was a soft-blue glow that cast shadows on the rock roof and bars above her. The first was surprising, but the latter was disconcerting. Why were there bars on the ceiling?

  She rolled onto her side, groaning as she did so and, with strength she pulled from somewhere, pushed up on an elbow. In front of her, beside her, and beneath her were more bars. She was surrounded by them.

  Too small to be a cell, which would have been bad enough, but this was more like... Maker in heaven! A cage!

  A rustling sound behind her had her rolling onto her other side. A woman was exiting, ducking low to get through the four-foot-high door. Adria scrambled to get up before she locked her in, but her movements were sluggish, her muscles uncooperative, and, the thing hampering her the most—her chest hurt like she’d been run over by a hover car. The door shut with an ominous clang, and she slumped to the floor.

  “You shot me,” she accused, her groan coming out close to a sob. “Why, Amy?”

  “Actually, he’s not Amy,” a familiar voice put forward.

  Adria’s gaze rose to the woman she had mistaken for a friend.

  “He?” she whispered in confusion.

  “Yeah. He isn’t what he seems.”

  Something wasn’t right. Amy’s lips hadn’t moved, and the voice didn’t come from her, but from across the room. She forced herself to a seated position—everything, even her teeth, throbbing as she did—and she squinted past her captor’s jeans-clad legs, trying to see in the dim light.

  Her sudden cry of alarm echoed off the rock ceiling. Through the bars, she saw a woman sitting across from her in an identical cage. As Adria stared at her in horror, she reached up and push her disheveled hair out of her face. Her disheveled auburn hair with springy spiral curls.

  “It’s not possible,” she uttered in horror as her eyes darted back and forth between the Amethyst Stone standing outside her cage, the one she’d met at Milton’s and taken an instant liking to, the one she’d offered a job at the clinic, and the one just like her locked in a cage.

  They wore the same pale-pink sweater and jeans, had the same curvy shape, with the same creamy complexion and blue eyes.

  Was she imagining things? Had she hit her head and fallen after Amy shot her?

  Adria’s hands flew to her face, and she rubbed her eyes.

  “This can’t be happening,” she whispered.

  “I sat here for hours telling myself the same thing, that I was crazy, and this wasn’t possible. I pinched myself—hard—convinced I was dreaming, and that I would wake and all of this would go away, but it didn’t. The only thing I’ve come up with so far is that it is possible because this is real—it’s happening.”

  “But how are there two of you? Do you have a twin?”

  “No,” the caged Amy whispered. “I’m an only child. I always wanted a sister. Lord knows I bugged my parents about it often enough as a kid.” She pointed at her double who watched them both with keen interest. “But whatever that is, is no relation to me.”

  Then, the standing Amy spoke for the first time, and, like everything else, her voice was identical to the original. “Stupid human,” she uttered, her mouth turned down in disgust. “You should be so fortunate.”

  The being had left them scared, confused, and chilled. For innumerable hours, in the darkness and dampness of the cave—yeah, a cave, because a cage wasn’t horrifying enough—Adria huddled in a ball, trying to keep warm and stay alert.

  Amy had talked to her initially. But the creature had returned and dragged her away. She’d screamed and fought but was outmatched in strength. Not long after, it carried her back and laid her none too gently inside her cramped prison then slammed the door and was gone again.

  This happened twice. Each time she came back looking worse, paler, as though the color had been drained from her. She didn’t wake fully so Adria could ask her what happened. She’d moan, whimper pitifully, but her eyes never opened, and she didn’t regain consciousness.

  Footsteps rang out, foretelling of the creature’s return. She’d quickly determined this other Amy wasn’t human, and since none of her people had the power to change their physical appearance, it must be alien, the species unknown to her.

  It approached the insensate woman’s cage again.

  “Stop,” she hissed. “Can’t you see she’s had enough of whatever torture you’re putting her through?”

  The creature paused and stared down at Amy for a moment then turned black eyes on her.

  Adria gasped. Her point proven. Amy had blue eyes the color of the sky over earth, a cyan blue she’d seen on the action flick she and Beck had watched at the recreation center what seemed like eons ago. These unfeeling, cold, soulless eyes were not the same as her vivacious, bubbly friend’s.

  “What are you?” she demanded. “What do you want from us?”

  “From your human friends? Nothing I haven’t already taken.”

  Friends? She looked around then sucked in a horrified breath. Beyond her cage, and Amy’s—the real Amy’s—were two more. In one, she could make out the dark shape of a body on the floor.

  “He served his purpose, but males lack a certain...flavor. It’s a personal taste, certainly.” The creature glanced at Amy, almost wistfully. “Her usefulness has almost passed, which is unfortunate. She is like none other, and I enjoyed her immensely. Although, since I have you now, perhaps I can make her last a little longer.”

  The alien Amy suddenly squatted and peered through the bars of her cage. Having an identical version of her friend staring at her, her gaze coldly calculating, made Adria recoil. Though she knew it was pointless, she scooted back, moving as far from him as the bars would allow.

  “You, on the other hand, are the key to a prize I’ve been seeking for some time.”

  Listening to the creature speak in Amy’s voice made her skin crawl. It was an eerily close replica, but not an exact match. The tone was brittle, lacking her friend’s warmth and inflection, and didn’t capture her natural exuberance.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She let out a laugh much like when she’d shot her; a sound that would haunt her dreams for an eternity. Which Adria got the feeling wasn’t nearly as long as she’d always thought it would be.

  “It’s not necessary you understand, only that you endure longer than the human. This could take some time.” She reached out, pressed her hand to the locking panel, and the door, which Adria had meticulously tried and tested and run her fingers over every square inch of, sprang open.

  “Stay away from me,” she cried, as the being ducked its head and entered. Terrified, she struck out at it with her fists and feet. But, as she’d suspected, it was stronger than she was.

  Its pink-tipped fingers curled around her head and hauled her close. She almost fainted when it opened its mouth, terrified it would bite her. This must have been how he drained Amy of color, awareness, and energy. But Adria never felt its teeth piercing her skin. Instead, she felt the air leave her lungs, and, with it, a rush of something else she couldn’t explain. It left her incredibly fatigued and barely able to keep her eyes open.

  She heard a low chuckle, not Amy’s but familiar, and when the creature raised its head, Adria saw her own straight dark hair and blue-green eyes, like she was looking into a mirror. She would have cried out if she’d had the strength.

  It released her, surprising her by covering her with a thick blanket, which hadn’t been offered before.

  “Can’t have my key to the kingdom of Primaria getting cold now, can I?”

  A weak horrified s
ob bubbled up from her chest because it had taken on her voice as well. Everything was her now. The being who looked and sounded like her—and even smelled like her soap—didn’t spare any of them another glance as it exited their prison.

  She felt sick, worried for herself, but also for what this alien had planned for her home. After the Rain of Fire and losing half their females then dwindling in numbers for years, only to find hope for a future with their alliance with the humans, she wanted to rail at her Maker. Why now? Hadn’t they suffered enough?

  But she couldn’t lift her head off the hard rock floor to shout her frustration to the heavens, and she couldn’t keep her eyelids from closing or the blackness of sleep from overtaking her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Are you sure these are the correct coordinates?” Remus asked as he eyed the mouth of the cave. “Adria would have to crawl to get through here.’

  “Yes,” his twin replied. “The Intrepid’s scanners picked up a heat signature at this location multiple times. It didn’t alert initially because it was much colder than our own and that of the humans.”

  “So, our mission is to confront a cold-blooded alien or an animal in its own cave, which, from the looks of the opening, can’t be more than four or five feet high,” he grumbled. “Great.”

  Ignoring the brothers, Beck dropped into a crouch and led the way with his tracking device in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Once inside, he glanced down at the screen, worried the rock surrounding them on all sides would interfere with the signal. A light flashed indicating the presence of a life form ahead. That it was green told him it was human or Primarian as the tracker had been programmed to detect body temperature and heart rates of both species, which were nearly identical. As he adjusted the manual dial to pinpoint the exact location, two other dots appeared, one beeping rapidly, and the other perilously slow.

  “I’m picking up three life signs approximately two hundred and fifty yards ahead,” he advised, and while hunched forward in the cramped space, started that way.