The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One)

by JC Andrijeski

  My smile faded when my shoulder struck a small boulder, hard enough for me to grunt in pain. It snapped me out of my fugue state a little, though.

  I looked up and back, craning my head.

  Men carried me. Not just one. Three of them.

  They carried me facedown, which was why I hadn’t seen the sky.

  When I looked up now, hard, angular faces shone in small circles cut in gray, skin-like cloth. Pale, white hair with orange metallic highlights ruffled at different lengths in the breeze. Remembering faces like these from the nightmare I'd just left, I cried out in fear, fighting to writhe free of their hold. They’d bound my hands, though. Two different guys each held one of my ankles.

  I struggled harder.

  When I did, the pain in my neck screamed.

  My body felt strangely light, my limbs stiff, difficult to manage.

  Without warning, they let me go.

  I landed painfully on my knees, seemingly on nothing but sharp edges.

  Gasping against that fire blooming in my knees, I looked around. I found myself in what appeared to be a dry creek bed, filled with chunks of glass-like rock. Above me, a near waterfall of the same, glass-like, smoky rocks littered a steeper slope. I didn't see any water, though. I guessed the water I’d thought I saw was nothing but the glass rocks themselves, glinting in sunlight and shadow.

  I watched in a kind of numb shock as the two men walked away.

  Their postures remained casual, openly indifferent, as if they'd just left a bag of dirty clothes at Goodwill. In any case, they didn't seem overly worried about me trying to escape.

  I fought to stand.

  I got hit, hard, by a wave of dizziness once I got a booted foot on the ground. Struggling to stay upright, I was forced to stop, panting. I managed to catch myself before I face-planted into those glass-like rocks... barely. Waiting until the next wave of sickening spins passed, I tried to think, to assess my options.

  They must have drugged me.

  That, or the air was all wrong for me here, just not wrong enough to kill me.

  Either way, the last thing I needed was to pass out.

  I needed my hands free.

  When my head and vision more or less cleared, I brought my bound wrists to my mouth, trying my teeth on the rope. The consistency was all wrong, though... it was more like skin than fibers, and my incisors only managed to mush it around.

  After a few more minutes of that, I realized it was futile.

  I looked around for weapons, next.

  Remembering those glass-like shards of rock, I fumbled around in the pile where I lay. Finding one with a sharp, knife-like edge, I wedged it between two others on the ground in front of me. Then I tried sawing at the alien rope again, using my knees to hold the rock still.

  All it did was create line-like indentations in the blue-gray material. The material felt like rubber, only rubber with the tensile strength of steel. No matter how sharp the stones, the material only slid around under the glass-like edges, evading any attempt puncture or tear it.

  I stopped long enough to rest, looking up at the cliffs.

  Fern trees waved from sheer lines of marbled rock, along with flowers that looked bigger than my head, now that I was closer. I wondered briefly at the make-up of the insect population here, then shoved that from my mind, too.

  My mind grew paralyzed by the view of that deep-blue, purple-tinted sky.

  No way I could convince myself that sky belonged to Earth.

  No way I could convince myself that I’d just passed out, that night magically turned to day, that I was in South America or some other part of Earth, not even if I’d been knocked out for a few weeks, or drugged, or if my mind had suddenly snapped. Any one of those things might still be true, of course, but I struggled more and more to convince myself that some combination of those factors could explain everything I was seeing.

  The high, dome-like sky simply looked too real.

  The air smelled too hot, too rancid with plant-like decay, too filled with foreign sweat and fragrances and hints of water. Blue-green clouds morphed too perfectly in wind, even as the cries of some kind of animal reached me through the breeze from a distance.

  Then I heard something else. Something a lot more familiar-sounding.

  A thick gasp, followed by a scattering of laughter.

  I looked down the slope, towards the trees.

  I saw buildings there, and blinked at them in surprise. They stood in the trees about a hundred feet away, all the same gray-blue color. The colors and shapes of those buildings both contrasted strangely with the lushness of the jungle and helped them to blend into the dirt and rocks below. Half-buried in the trees, they looked to be made of some kind of metal. Blue-gray in color, it reminded me somehow of the glass rocks, and the uniforms those men wore.

  The laughter grew louder.

  Loud enough to convince me it was real.

  My eyes swiveled, finding the source.

  More men in those same, gray scuba suits were dragging something, some kind of animal that appeared to be wounded. I recognized the form then, and let out a startled gasp.

  It was him. Nihkil... my odd stranger with the different-colored eyes and the super-strength. The same guy I’d been dumb enough to follow to this place, even after he specifically told me not to.

  I watched as four men threw Nihkil to the ground, a lot less gently than they had me. They slammed him against a boulder made of that sharp, glass-like rock, so that his back hit flat against one side.

  Panting, Nihkil held up a hand in a kind of supplication.

  It only made those jerks with the weird hair and the gray scuba suits laugh harder.

  I felt my jaw clench, but only watched, silent.

  Unlike with me, they didn't leave Nihkil alone.

  A circle of maybe eight people stood over him instead, pacing like jackals in front of a wounded antelope. They looked as if they were trying to decide how long they should play with him before they ate him. They’d already bound Nihkil’s arms at awkward angles behind his back. His feet appeared to be bound, too, with the same strong but stretchy material that encased my wrists. Something that looked like a shard of glass, covered in blood, stuck out of his shoulder. One of his ears bled, and blood trickled down from under his hairline.

  I was still staring, fighting the reality of what I saw, while at the same time trying to decide if there was anything I could do... when the soldier closest to Nihkil kicked him in the thigh. He did it hard enough to make me jump.

  Hard enough to make Nihkil gasp.

  More laughter circulated.

  I forced myself to acknowledge the scene in front of me, to see it as real. I watched Nihkil look up at those people with the straw-like hair and felt a kind of helpless rage settle over me. I tried again to decide if there was anything I could do. At the same time, logic tried to assert itself. He'd tried to warn me. He’d said this would probably get bad.

  I should have listened to him. Really, about a lot of things.

  For now, I didn’t know what to do, though. Nihkil said before that we just had to wait out the bad parts. But wait for what? For them to kill one of us? For rescue?

  The guy hadn’t made a lot of sense.

  The same man who kicked Nihkil now squatted in front of him, so that their eyes came almost level. After saying a few words to him, words I couldn’t make out, the reddish-skinned man put a hand on the center of Nihkil's chest.

  He did it only for a bare instant.

  Jerking his fingers away as if burnt, he glared at Nihkil in anger. Something about the contact made Nihkil shudder, too, right before he let out another low gasp. The man watched Nihkil’s face, as if suspicious, then frowned, staring between his two eyes.

  Whatever just happened, the guy with the weird hair hadn't expected it, I found myself thinking. He also seemed to blame Nihkil. Before I could wrap my head around the angry look that rose to soldier guy's expression, he’d backhanded Nihkil across the f
ace, yelling something at him in a strange language.

  When Nihkil gasped words back, sounding apologetic, the first guy only raised his voice. Nihkil shook his head, inclining his head in a gesture that felt submissive. When he wouldn't meet the soldier's eyes, the man grabbed his jaw and chin, forcing Nihkil to look at him as he spoke again. That time, he used a low voice, tapping a metal baton against Nihkil's chest in an obvious threat.

  Nihkil only shook his head again, his posture still submissive.

  The language they spoke reminded me of seals barking.

  It occurred to me that I’d been trying to work it out, to understand it, or at least pick out a few words and phrases as if it were German or Czech or Japanese. When I looked up at that enormous, purple-blue sky, I remembered that probably wouldn't help me here.

  I went back to following their facial expressions, instead.

  Nihkil’s eyes remained doll-like, vacant, even as he kept his posture submissive to the man holding the baton. From Nihkil's expression, he might not have understood their words any better than I did, but I found myself doubting that to be true.

  He must understand, since he'd answered the other guy at least once. He was playing dumb, maybe... or maybe just offering no resistance, but also no assistance.

  Either way, the guy with the weird hair wasn't having it.

  The soldier crouching there backhanded Nihkil again, harder. When Nihkil only looked at him, his eyes blank, the man hit him again, that time, rocking his head back on his neck. When the man hit him a third time, cracking him on the cheekbone with the blunt end of the metal baton, I cried out involuntarily. I couldn’t help myself.

  Heads turned.

  Eyes stared at me, almost as if they’d forgotten me entirely.

  They all seemed to have large, dark eyes––so dark that, in some of those faces, I couldn’t distinguish irises from pupils. Their faces on average appeared narrow with pointed chins. I knew they must have some variety, but they all looked roughly the same to me still, even between the men and women. The odd hair color must have some variation, too, but I couldn't really see that yet, either. The only means of distinguishing any of them was that some faces looked younger than others. That, and the more female-maybe ones seemed to be smaller than the male-maybe ones, meaning in overall size.

  They all appeared to be muscular and tall compared to people on Earth, although none so tall as Nihkil himself. I only saw a handful of bodies that looked female and even with those, I often had to second-guess my choices. The women were just as broad-shouldered and muscular as the men, and they all seemed to use the same barber.

  Unlike the weirdos in the gray scuba suits, Nihkil didn’t look at me.

  He stared resolutely ahead, his eyes aimed at the metallic buildings.

  No one broke the silence or seemed to change expression for a few seconds. Then, as if on cue, a few soldiers grinned, speaking to one another with that barking, seal-like language. A louder voice said something that brought a laugh from the rest of the group.

  The man crouching by Nihkil didn’t smile, though.

  Instead, he looked between Nihkil and me.

  After another pause, he made a circular gesture in the air above his head, whistling. It was then that I realized he must be in charge, not just the biggest asshole. A few of the soldiers standing around him dropped their long, metal poles right after he spoke, and began loping in my direction.

  I have to say, I didn’t like that much.

  The man crouched by Nihkil got up too, and began walking towards me with deliberate strides.

  Realizing there was no way this would turn out well for me, I scrambled backwards with my hands and feet, fighting once more to get upright.

  Fuck my hands being tied. I had to get the hell out of here. Now.

  Whatever they wanted from me, it couldn't be good.

  The guy in charge, who I now realized appeared older than the others, too, lengthened his strides as he approached where I struggled to get up. Without taking his eyes off me, he made a side-jerk hand motion to the other three.

  The three underlings broke formation, running to get behind me.

  Sharp rocks and my bound arms got in the way as I tried to get up. Their leader reached me before I managed to writhe more than a few yards. By then, the other three had circled around behind me, blocking my way. Without really formulating a plan, I’d been aiming my body up the hill and out of the glass-filled canyon, maybe in the hopes I’d be able to run once I reached the dirt and trees.

  But yeah, I didn't get that far.

  I’d found a boulder and was using it to get the rest of the way to my feet, when the first guy reached me. He leaned down, grabbing me by the hair.

  I shrieked when he yanked me backwards, then fought his hold as hard as I could. He continued to drag me down the hill, even as I kicked at the ground with my boots, trying to slow him down. I hit out at him, too, using every part of my body I could access, including my bound hands balled into fists, elbows, knees and feet. Reaching down, I grabbed one of the glass-like shards as a weapon until he knocked it out of my hand. When I grabbed another one, he punched me in the face, stunning me.

  He’d already disarmed me by the time I could see again.

  After that, I couldn't seem to get my fingers around any more shards. He yanked on my hair every time I tried. Now my hands were slippery with blood, too, mostly from the rocks I'd tried to grab and missed, but also from the ones he’d yanked out of my fingers.

  I went back to trying to hit at him with my fists.

  Ducking, blocking and absorbing blows from my bound arms and unbound legs, and even one from my head, he barely seemed to notice. Without changing expression, he yanked me the rest of the way to my feet. Once he had me up, he forced me around, so that my back lay to his chest. Cinching an arm around me, tight, he pinned my arms.

  Then he yanked on my hair, twisting my head back.

  Pain from whatever was wrong with my neck shot down my spine.

  It completely paralyzed me.

  I’d never experienced pain like that before. Nothing had ever come close... and really, I'd been in some throw-down, nasty, bone-breaking brawls in my time. It hurt so bad all I could do was let out a kind of gasp. I couldn’t scream, or even swear. It took every ounce of my willpower just to keep from passing out.

  Reaching for his thigh, the soldier unsheathed what looked like a glass knife.

  Turning with me, he displayed the knife to Nihkil.

  That time, when he spoke, his voice sounded harsher, like an open threat.

  My breath continued to hitch and stutter as I fought to stay conscious, making me light-headed. I hung there, in that guy’s arms, my head and back at odd angles, my toes half-holding my weight on the boots. The jerk with the weird hair yanked my head further back, and that time, a scream ripped out of my throat. Fire tore apart my spine and I screamed again, fighting to get free until he laid the knife against my jugular.

  The blade felt warm.

  I panted, indecisive, then tried to control my breathing when the knife’s edge cut into my skin at each inhale. I fought to clear my head, to think. But the same thought kept repeating, and it wasn’t a remotely helpful one. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening to me. No one got the drop on me like this. No one got to kill me like a pet dog.

  I couldn't just die like this, in the middle of some nightmare other world. Not when I didn't know anything. Not when I didn't know who these clowns even were...

  Nihkil stared up at me and the soldier guy, blank-faced.

  The man shouted again, pressing the blade deeper, bringing a trickle of blood down my collarbone.

  Nihkil’s expression didn't move. His demeanor remained one of polite disinterest.

  The man pulled the knife away, slashing it twice across my shoulders. I sucked in a breath, then shrieked again at the top of my lungs. The man holding me hit me in the face with the hilt of the knife, stunning me back into silen
ce. He tightened his grip on my hair, putting the blade back to my throat. He yelled louder at Nihkil.

  Nihkil’s expression still didn’t change.

  The white-haired man lowered the knife, pressing his lips together.

  He released me in the same set of seconds, stepping away from where I stood.

  Almost falling, I staggered instead, legs trembling as I caught myself. I found myself staring at Nihkil, unable to help myself, but he wouldn’t return my gaze. Looking me up and down, the leader of the asshole brigade glanced around at the circle of uniformed men, who'd moved closer to watch the show.

  After a pause, the leader gestured another command, whistling.

  That time, the circle of humans laughed. Reaching behind his vest, one of the younger ones began unhooking something near his waist.

  Watching his motions, I couldn't make sense of them at all at first, not even in the abstract. When he started to open his pants, however, wrestling off the skin-like material, the pieces began to click together in my mind.

  For some reason, I looked at Nihkil.

  Seeing his indifferent stare, I swiveled my gaze back towards the young soldier.

  “No!” I said. “No way!” I stepped back, holding out my bound arms. “No! Look.” Thinking fast, I appealed to the younger, less angry-looking ones in the group. “I don’t even know him!” I gestured towards Nihkil. “Can’t you see he doesn’t give a shit? Nihkil... or whoever the hell you are! Tell them! Tell them who I am!”

  A soldier imitated me calling his name, his voice high-pitched.

  Laughter rose.

  Nihkil wouldn’t return my gaze.

  I turned around in a circle to get the lay of the land, my arms stretched out in a gesture that was half a plea for peace and half a fighting stance. I'd been in enough close fights to know I was ridiculously outnumbered, even if I wasn't tied up, cut up, exhausted and unbalanced from whatever was wrong with the air here.

  The men smiled, their expressions and eyes relaxed and uncaring. They obviously didn’t see me as a threat, either. They surrounded me in a rough circle, the nearest now less than three yards from where I stood. They surrounded me now, too.

  Even the ones who looked female had decided to stay for the show.