Rafaroy

by T. J. Quinn

  Elena had been very nervous about their absence and had devised a plan to get Alanna to safety in case they were attacked.

  She told her sister she should escape and hide in an ancient mine, just outside town and stay there until she was sure it was safe to come out. She would try to meet her there as soon as possible. She also told her how to get to the nearest village in case she wasn’t able to join her sister.

  Alanna had looked a bit scared, but Elena wanted to prepare the girl. She didn’t want her to fall into the Taucets’ claws. “You’re overreacting, Elena,” she had protested, but she hadn't paid attention. She needed her safe, that was all that mattered.

  There was an awkward silence in town, and she felt a chill going down her spine as she opened the back door to her café. Johanna was already there, baking the pies she was famous for and Elena joined her in the kitchen, preparing a few other things she sold at the café.

  She had just opened the doors for her first customer when the hell exploded outside. They were under attack.

  Running, she left the café through the back door, heading to the school as fast as she could, but she quickly realized they were surrounded by armed Taucets.

  She was about to reach the school when a group of them appeared in front of her, with their vicious weapons pointing at her, forcing her and all the other people on the streets to walk back to the center of town.

  The Taucets took over the small town and its inhabitants so easily it was shameful. They had no means to protect themselves, and the enemy had taken full advantage of that.

  They quickly gathered the people in the middle of the main street, separating women from men and children.

  The desperate cries of the children were heartbreaking but there was nothing any of them could do.

  Elena had tried to see Alanna in the group of kids being taken to the Mayor’s house, but it was impossible to spot her sister in the middle of the chaos. She was mad at herself for not believing her instincts but now it was too late to do anything about it, she was a prisoner of the Taucets, and if the stories people told about them were true, she would soon become a slave, along with all the women captured with her.

  Tears of desperation ran down her cheeks when she was forced to board one of the Taucets’ vessels. She knew that she would never see her sister again and she couldn’t bear the idea. Like her, all mothers and sisters around her were going through the same agony, and though they had asked endlessly about the children, the aliens hadn't given them a straight answer.

  Instead, they all had their hands cuffed behind their backs, and a gag shoved into their mouths.

  They were flown out of the small village, and a couple of hours later the vessels were landing in what looked like an igloo camp. Several structures similar to igloos connected by hallways occupied a huge lot. It seemed they were up in the Rocky Mountains because they hadn't traveled that long, and the place was covered with snow.

  They were forced out of the vessels and guided to a huge room where they were separated by age, forming several groups. Elena was put in one with other women ages from twenty to twenty-five and Johanna was taken to another group of women from thirty to thirty-five. She had no idea what the aliens were going to do with them, but she was sure it wouldn’t be anything good.

  Her group was taken by three armed guards that guided them through the hallways into another room where four men, dressed in some sort of white jumpsuits, waited for them.

  “Chain them to the bar on the wall, and we’ll take care of them from now on.” One of them said, without compassion, as he looked at the approximately thirty women assembled in the room.

  “Sure thing.” One of the guards said as they started to obey the other man’s orders. “What do you think they’ll do to these ones?”

  “I was told this group would become incubators. They want to start with the youngest, to raise the possibilities of positive results.”

  The women gasped and whimpered at the alien’s words, some even tried to escape, but it was useless. They were all forcibly pushed up against the wall and attached to the metal bar there. There was no escape for them, no matter what they tried.

  The guards left the room once they were done and the women were left alone with the aliens in white.

  “Now, that was something very stupid to do,” one of the men in white said. “If you had been already marked, you would be on the floor now, squirming in excruciating pain. From the moment you were captured by the Taucets, you became our property, and your lives no longer belong to you. Your fate is entirely decided by us, and you’ll accept that as soon as possible, otherwise there will be terrible consequences for you,” the man added, in a grim tone, leaving no room for doubt.

  They all grabbed some scissors and approached the women. Elena closed her eyes to hold back the tears struggling to come out. Crying was useless, and she had no intention of showing these bastards just how scared she was of the future they planned for her.

  It only took them a few minutes to strip off the women’s clothes and soon they were all completely naked and exposed to the lustful eyes of the aliens. Some groped the women they were stripping, but fortunately, Elena wasn’t one of them.

  “This is a good group. It’s a pity they won’t auction them. I wouldn’t mind buying a couple of them for me,” one of the aliens said, as he groped the woman he was stripping.

  “I know what you mean, but we need to find a way to reproduce, or we’re doomed,” one of the others replied, as he walked to a metallic examination table and grabbed some sort of gun, similar to the ones people used to tattoo.

  The other aliens mimicked him, and soon they were returning to where the women were chained with the gun on their hands.

  “This will mark you as Taucet property. This tattoo is also embedded with nano-circuitry that will be activated by any of us in case of disobedience. It will send an extremely painful impulse through your body that will throw you to the floor,” one of them informed, in an icy tone. “It will also prevent you from trying to escape. If you ever try to cross the colony’s walls, the impulse will be automatically activated.”

  Some of the women whimpered, but most seemed beyond tears. They had all realized they were doomed.

  The aliens proceeded to tattoo the women, at the base of their necks, on the left side. They activated the gun, and some sort of laser beam hit their necks making them feel as if a million needles were pinching their skin.

  Once they had marked them all, they unchained two of them and dragged them to the examination tables in the middle of the room.

  Elena wasn’t able to see what they were doing to them, but she could guess. A lot of muffled sobs and cries filled the room and those waiting were feeling more and more distressed.

  When they were done with the women on the table, they helped them up and handed them a piece of clothing that was a little more than a rag and walked them to the door where a guard waited to take them away to their final destination.

  When it was Elena’s turn, she was feeling quite nervous, but she didn’t offer any resistance. It clearly was useless, and she didn’t fight battles she knew were lost. Her mind was focused on trying to find a way to escape so she could go find her little sister. She couldn’t stop thinking about her and how scared she would be.

  The alien forced her to lie down on the examination table and quickly restrained her to it. Without uttering a word, two of them started working on her, scanning her whole body, groping her with clumsy and rude movements, as if she was some sort of doll they were inspecting. After a few minutes of the opprobrious examination, one of the aliens examining her grabbed a strange device from a drawer and ran it over her whole body, from her neck down. Though she tried not to cry or even whimper, it was impossible. The damn thing felt as if she was being burned alive. The sensation was terrible and excruciatingly painful, but, incredibly, it left no mark on her skin, other than some redness she was sure would quickly fade. It also removed all hairs from her body.


  They washed her after that with cold water, and though it was freezing, it relieved some of the pain she was still experiencing. Seconds later, they blew hot air right after the cold water to dry her off, and she scowled at the contrast.

  Praying they were done, Elena closed her eyes for a few seconds, just to open them startled when she felt them touching her nipples.

  “We’re installing tracking devices. These are impossible to remove unless you cut open your nipple, so don’t bother trying,” one of them explained to her, as they pulled her nipples hard and pierced them with the devices they both held in their hands. She let out a muffled cry as the sharp needle penetrated her sensitive skin, and soon they replaced it with a metallic ring they welded in place. Even after they finished, her nipples throbbed at the painful invasion.

  After that, they gave her the same rags, some sort of tiny dress that left very little to one’s imagination, like those they had given the other women. Soon she was walking out the door, accompanied by an armed guard that guided her through a labyrinth of hallways until they reached some sort of dungeon. It was a huge room, filled with cells, some of them already occupied with some of the women from her own village and others she had never seen before.

  The cells were identified with different colors, and soon she realized it matched the color of the rags they were wearing. Like all the women in her group, she was wearing turquoise rags, and the cell she was put in had the same color on the thick door that was closed behind her back.

  Inside the small cell, there was only a bunk bed, a sink, and a toilet. Nothing more.

  The walls that separated her from the other women looked thick and didn’t allow her to hear them at all. She was completely isolated, and with nothing more to do, all her concerns about her sister returned to the point she was losing her mind.

  She wanted to believe Alanna had been able to escape the Taucets attack and that she was on her way to the nearest village in search of help, but she had no idea and not knowing was the worst part.

  She still couldn’t understand how they had been so easily attacked, exactly when the soldiers had left town on a mission. That had never happened in all the years they had been there. She tried not to see a conspiracy behind Captain Summers’ actions, but it was very hard not to. They had known the Taucets were in the area and yet they had done nothing to search for them and send them away. Instead, they had left the town unprotected and vulnerable to attack, one that had occurred, only a couple of days after they had left.

  Furious, she punched the bed she was sitting on, but allowing her mind to swirl around those theories wouldn’t help her.

  She doubted the army would go looking for them and even if they did, what were the chances of them finding this colony?

  Sighing, she lay down on the narrow bed and closed her eyes, feeling incredibly tired. It had been a hellish day, and she was sure her future would be filled with a lot more.

  Sometime later, a tray with food was slid under the door, by a tiny opening and a voice on the sound system of the place ordered the prisoners to eat the meals served. Any waste or refusal to obey would be severely punished. The trays would be taken back in exactly half an hour.

  Elena looked at the food on the tray, finding it disgusting. She was sure it had all the nutrients and proteins a person would need, but it looked like a pile of dreadful purée or something.

  She thought about not eating it, but she knew she had to keep herself healthy and strong in case she had the opportunity to escape.

  So, she got up and grabbed the tray, and ate the whole thing. As expected, it tasted terrible, but still, she ate it all and drunk the beverage they had sent as well and returned the tray through the hole in the door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A couple of days later, the cyborgs were notified that the army had finally gotten the location of two of the Taucets’ colonies and that they would attack them as soon as they could.

  “What about all the people they enslaved? Aren’t they in those colonies? What will happen to them in case of an attack?” Rafaroy asked, with a deep frown.

  General Foster looked at him with so much hatred, Rafaroy was sure he would have killed him right there and then if he could.

  “Like I said, a few days ago, some casualties are expected in a war. Destroying the Taucets’ colony is far more important than saving the lives of possible hostages. As far as we know, there shouldn’t be that many humans held prisoner in the colonies. We have no information on that,” the man replied, in a brittle tone.

  Rafaroy knew the general had been fighting to have a chip implanted in the cyborgs that would suppress their compassion and sense of right and wrong, turning them into simple killing machines. But so far, he hadn't been able to convince the government that the cyborgs wouldn’t become too dangerous to handle if they did that.

  Rafaroy shook his head, hating the whole situation, though he knew there wasn’t much he could do. He would have to attack the colony, following the general’s orders and all he could hope for was to have the least possible amount of casualties.

  “We’ll be leaving for the area in the morning, and we’ll attack as soon as we can,” General Foster continued. “Your orders are to exterminate as many Taucets you can. Don’t take prisoners.”

  The men assembled nodded, but Rafaroy knew none was too happy with the orders. They knew there were females and children in those colonies, but like always, they could leave those for the human soldiers to deal with. Unless they were attacked, no cyborg would kill an unarmed woman or child. General Foster should know better than that.

  They were deployed that same day to an area near one of the colonies, located on the top of the Rocky Mountains.

  It was very cold, but cyborgs were prepared to face extreme temperatures, so the cold didn’t affect them. The human soldiers didn’t have the same ability, and the cold had them ill-tempered and grumpy.

  They were finally ordered to attack and using a few vessels and tanks they headed to the colony, destroying all on their way.

  The Taucets were too careless. Though the colony was surrounded by tall, thick walls, they didn’t have that many guards outside the walls, to give the alert in case of an attack. They were too confident they wouldn’t be found in that location.

  It was quite easy to enter the colony, destroying the thick walls and all of their security systems.

  The minute they entered the colony, Rafaroy sensed the presence of Khajal. It made him happy to confirm his friend was alright, but he wished he was far from the battle happening in that place. The last thing he wanted was for his friend to be captured by the humans again.

  Unlike what General Foster had said, the place was crowded with human prisoners, especially women. Rafaroy used the cyborgs’ secret channel to warn his friends about it, but the whole situation was a mess.

  At some point, Khajal’s voice reached him through that same channel. “Raf, there are hundreds, if not thousands of human females, held prisoners here,” his friend warned him.

  “Khajal, you old bastard, what the hell are you still doing here?” Rafaroy snarled at him.

  “That’s not important. You need to blast all the Taucet’s systems, or you’ll kill the females when you try to take them out of here.” Khajal added. “They have implanted a system that will kill them if their exit is detected.”

  “Very well, I’ll forward the information. Now, get out of here. There’s a high price on your head, and humans are fighting here with us,” he warned his friend worried he would be captured. Though he was announced dead, Rafaroy had heard some human soldiers talking about the price the government had put on Khajal’s head. They wanted him dead or alive.

  “I’m leaving. Make sure to destroy this place to the ground. And if you can, try to escape. I’ll be around for a while, in case you make it. The codes still work,” Khajal advised him.

  “Copied that. I’ll do all in my power, believe me.” He assured his friend, as he walked throug
h the hallways of the colony killing as many Taucets as he could.

  “Good luck my friend,” Khajal told him before he went silent.

  Rafaroy informed his friends about Khajal’s presence in the colony and went on with his work, taking down as many Taucets as he could and freeing the human slaves incarcerated in the place, directing them off the premises, through the walls they had destroyed. There was a convoy there waiting to take care of them, or so he hoped. By then, he wasn’t sure of anything, regarding the humans’ interests.

  At some point, he reached an area that seemed mainly occupied by humans, and he heard some human soldiers somewhere nearby gathering the women to take them out of there. Judging by the screams and yells, they weren’t acting very friendly, and Rafaroy headed that way, to put some order into it, when he saw a blonde woman, wearing some sort of jumpsuit sneaking out of the colony. She was heading the opposite direction, right into the middle of the conflict, judging by the sounds coming from outside.

  With a sigh, he followed her and quickly grabbed her. “It’s not safe for you to get outside.” he snarled in her ear.

  She struggled to escape his grip to no use before she turned to look at him. “I just want to get home. Let me go,” she said, struggling harder.

  “It’s not safe,” he insisted, tightening his grip on her. Suddenly, a scent filled his nostrils, and he froze, flaring his nostrils and sniffing the air.

  “I know this place better than you,” she assured him.

  It was Khajal’s scent. The woman stank of his friend. “You’ve been with Khajal.” The woman froze in his arms, for a few moments.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about. Let me go. I’m not the enemy,” she protested, struggling harder to get free.

  “His scent is all over you, female. There’s no use lying to me.” He insisted, tightening his grip.