Still, I didn’t think they’d go that far with their Stone Age way of thinking... Their reprisal had come without warning. One day the people who were responsible for Mary Anne’s presence in the world had decided that she was not to be allowed to go to college.
“You are an embarrassment, young lady!” her father had bellowed the loudest he could. “The people laugh behind our backs every day, all because of your stubbornness! You act as if something is wrong with you, and you do it on purpose! And don’t get me started on that appearance you maintain! Fine! Do as you wish, Mary Anne. Don’t act as if I am preventing you from being yourself, as you insist on calling this mockery. Do not, however, expect to get any support from us for as long as you insist on maintaining this ridiculous attitude. I will not release a crazy girl into the world. Understand?”
That monologue had been far more significant than it initially seemed. First off, Mary Anne’s funds were drastically reduced, limiting her ability to shop and outright preventing her from leaving the town. Second, her father had proclaimed that, until she proved that she was capable of forming and keeping a serious relationship with a man, her family would not support the rest of her schooling.
Friendless, unpopular, and deprived of money, they had thought that she’d relent. Instead, all that happened was that Mary Anne became even bitterer than before. And the couple of years that had passed since then had not done much for her wellbeing as she became increasingly desperate for some sort of friendship.
That position was filled by Andy. Always a bit of a slow learner, the youth was every bit as dull as most of the town’s younger (and older) population. What he had going for him, though, was a rather good heart, which made him a tolerable candidate for the position of Mary Anne’s only friend.
It went slowly, their first few meetings mostly consisting of the young man’s attempts to get into her panties. Mary Anne’s parents were so glad by that development that they even considered increasing her allowance. But they were glad that they hadn’t when it turned out that her interest in Andy was purely platonic.
It took some time, patience, and effort but finally, after several long months of direction, she had finally managed to place him right where she wanted him: the far reaches of the friend zone. It was a mutually beneficial relationship—Mary Anne would have the company of another, non-venomous person, and Andy would get the chance to expand his little mind, to whatever degree that was possible. Horror movie night was the strongest tradition of their two-year-long friendship, occurring once every week in the dead of the night (or morning).
This isn’t a solution, though. Mary Anne didn’t need to articulate that to know that it was true. Making the situation tolerable was not the same as sewing up a wound; it was much more akin to a common Band-Aid.
Horror movie night and the occasional midnight stroll isn’t going to cut it for any longer, I’m afraid. She could feel it. The longing for something new, something different, kept on consuming more and more of her recent thoughts. If I don’t solve my problem soon, there’s no telling what I might do…
Suddenly, she froze, her current line of thought interrupted by something that she couldn’t quite make out. It was next to her house right along the way, less than fifty feet in front of her. It had the shape of a single, moving orb of light, less than an inch in diameter and followed closely by an unusual blur. Right at the moment she noticed it, it stopped moving—the blur disappearing but the orb still blatantly visible, staring at her without making a single motion.
What the hell is that? She wanted to check it out, her curiosity piqued by the unusual sight. But flashbacks from the movies soon took over, sending Mary Anne into fight-or-flight mode. Breathing in deeply, she turned around, taking one more look at the still-present glowing little circle before she tensed every muscle in her body and ran in the opposite direction.
Her breathing getting faster and faster and her footwork following closely, Mary Anne got to the edge of the neighborhood within less than a minute. Turning around the sharp corner, she pressed herself toward the wall, doing her best to stabilize her breathing while remaining as silent as possible. Her vision was blurring, the ground beneath her appearing less flat and stable—a clear indication that the pace of her breathing was not sufficient.
Better to feel bad for a few minutes than get caught by whatever that was. Suddenly, Mary Anne felt foolish. Whatever that was? The idea seemed beyond silly. While it was possible that she had indeed seen something, the far more likely scenario was that she was simply tired and seeing things. It seems I was right. I am losing my mind out here.
Carefully, Mary Anne crept closer to the edge of the wall at her back, peeking behind it while hoping with all of her being that she was indeed going insane.
Nothing was there. I think I might be the first person in the world to actually feel relieved to be hallucinating.
A moment later, there was a thump. The dull, heavy sound came from right in front of her.
Please tell me that it’s not real.
Shivering, her lungs now hurting from both stress and lack of air, Mary Anne turned her gaze back to the front and immediately wished that she hadn’t. Standing in front of her was a swirling, expanding mass of inky blackness, grotesquely positioned around a glowing white orb. In less than a second the thing shifted between several different colors, finally settling on an unusual variant of polished chrome.
Please tell me that I have simply snapped.
With the thing’s shape now easily discernible, Mary Anne’s mouth instantly went dry. The sight before her dwarfed that from any sci-fi film: a towering, bipedal mass of metal. The thing was humanoid, somewhat similar to a mixture between a human being and a large cat, standing on digitigrade legs. But its head was something altogether different—somewhat elongated and devoid of any feature other than a single, glowing eye.
The metallic creature had spent barely more than a second in its visible mode before it started emanating an unpleasant, dull buzzing, a sound that became less and less bearable with each agonizing moment. Following suit, the white light became more and more intense, finally culminating in a single brilliant flash of light.
And then there was nothing.
Now
Out of air, Mary Anne still held her head with the palms of her hands. She was trying to produce a scream that she no longer needed, the pain having ended a good while ago. But the shock to her system was so great that her mind was still lagging behind her body. Shivering all over, from her fingers down to her toes, she forced herself to inhale mere moments before what felt like another unconscious episode in the making.
She was still in the chrome room, still wearing that tight, disturbingly well-proportioned bodysuit. Nothing had changed while she had been remembering the events leading up to now, except for the presence of a barely audible metallic sound coming from outside the room.
And it was getting closer.
Barely in control of herself, Mary Anne did not even have the time to try to hide before a nearby wall opened up, changing its shape in a way that appeared almost organic. The light on the other side was intense, whiter than anything she had ever seen, making her attempts to see anything through it completely futile. By the time the makeshift door had turned back into a wall, the room had been graced by the presence of a handsome new arrival.
Well, hello there. Mary Anne was tired, scared out of her mind, and completely numb, yet the stranger was so good-looking that he somehow managed to make her feel better. His body was statuesque, easily six-foot-two, incredibly well-sculpted, and decorated with perfectly positioned and shaped muscles. His skin color was bronzed, as if he had spent just the right amount of time under a tanning booth. His face, though, did not betray any discernible ethnic qualities, possessing straight and chiseled features that were indicative of western descent. This dazzling display of the masculine ideal was crowned with a full head of closely cropped blond hair, completing his unique appearance.
What
is that stuff that he’s wearing? Mary Anne was just about to note the new arrival’s choice of garments (something that seemed more at home within the sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian mummy) when another detail caught her attention—the stranger’s eyes. They were completely devoid of whites, colored exclusively in a deep shade of blue. Like a pair of light bulbs, the two orbs glowed intensely, stripping his appearance of any pretense of humanity.
“Greetings, Miss Mary Anne Burns.” Mary Anne had barely managed to gather all her thoughts by the time he spoke. His voice was powerful, the bass echoing throughout the room. “First of all, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience you might have experienced while my ch’orrd was escorting you here. Their equipment was primarily tuned to our physiology, so I’m afraid the experience might be somewhat unpleasant when used on a human such as you.”
Such as you, he says? You have got to be kidding me. Eyes wide and mouth agape, all Mary Anne could do was stare at the statuesque individual, the splendor of his appearance causing the strength to gradually return to her body.
“I am certain that you are wondering why you are here.” He took a confident step forward, closely followed by another. “The answer to that is complex, but it begins with my identity.”
Posing dramatically, arms spread at his sides, the stranger stopped a mere three feet from the bed-thing that Mary Anne still sat on. “Know that I am Har’kreen Zoracht, Garoh of the Ishadrah. In your language, that would make me something akin to a lord of an expeditionary force. In this case, however, the force is extraterrestrial in origin. Are you following all of this?” He stared into her with those deep blue eyes, devoid of whites as well as humanity, causing a torrent of mixed emotions to swirl around her previously tormented underbelly.
Is this guy saying that he’s an alien? So far outside her comfort zone, Mary Anne almost burst into laughter. But her survival instinct prevented that from happening. She was held prisoner in a chrome room, by a… Garoh (whatever that was) who was clearly well-mannered in an archaic way. Everything about the situation seemed off, and she became more and more determined to get to the bottom of it with each passing moment.
“So, Garooo-“
“Garoh,” he corrected her immediately, having visibly put quite some effort into not taking the mistake as a personal insult.
“Garoh, okay.” Mary Anne ran her gloved fingers through her hair, in a thinly disguised effort to buy herself a bit more time to process this whole mess. “That is your title, something like an equivalent of the lords we used to have on earth, right?”
“As much as an actual queen is something like an equivalent to the bloated little things that direct the colonies of some of your own indigenous creatures. You know the ones I mean?”
“Insects,” she replied, unable to divert her gaze from that of the alien. “But let’s not change the subject yet, please. Your name is… Harkreen… Zoracht. Right?” Biting her cheek from the inside, Mary Anne hoped that she had pronounced it right. The expression on the Garoh’s face, luckily, indicated that he was at least slightly pleased.
“Also, you are some sort of alien, right? And you’ve sent for me because…?”
“Your pronunciation of my name is just a tad bit short of perfect, girl. There is a slight delay between the “Har” and the “Kreen”, but aside from that, everything else was as perfect as it can be. Almost as perfect as your cute little face,” he smiled for a brief moment, surprising Mary Anne completely, before his expression became courteous but serious once again. “Yes, I am an alien, so far from my world that to try to explain its location to you would be an utter waste of time.”
That bad at giving out explanations, huh? She almost chuckled again, her survival instinct the only that held her cutting wit back from signing her own death warrant.
“The reason you are here, however… now, that will require quite a bit of explaining.” Har’kreen’s eyes now pointed toward the floor, then started shining again, this time in a slightly different way. It took Mary Anne a good moment or two, but pretty soon within those blue orbs she could make out an irregular amount of miniature diodes, all of them glowing in an eerie yellow color. As if it responded to this display, the floor moved in a manner not unlike the wall did when it opened, altering itself in order to form a comfortable, regal-looking chair for Har’kreen. He immediately sat on it, just in time for another piece of what used to be floor to sprout right in front of him in the form of a smooth little table.
Mary Anne had seen the room shift before and was kind of getting used to the sight, so it was what was on the table that grabbed her attention. A pair of metallic-appearing cups was there, both of them giving off a pleasant and familiar aroma, that of freshly prepared coffee.
For all I know, it might be drugged. Regardless, Mary Anne extended her right arm, grabbing the cup and pressing it against her lips. Then again it might not be, and I know how much I need this.
In response, Har’kreen grabbed the other one, taking a significant chug himself. Smiling, he put it back down on the table, visibly pleased by her show of trust in her host.
“I’m listening.” Mary Anne broke the silence, placing her now empty cup right next to Har’kreen’s. “You’re not going to anally probe me now, are you?” She smiled in an awkward way, not sure how he would respond to her humor.
“Only if you want me to,” Har’kreen smiled back, displaying a set of dazzling white teeth. But without giving Mary Anne the chance for a retort, he continued, “The reason for your abduction, however, is a dire one. You see, my people and I are in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“A good while ago, we came into contact with a warlike race called the Brahm.” Har’kreen’s expression darkened, even his luminous eyes appearing visibly less so. “The Brahm were the only real threat we had ever faced, ever since the beginning of our interstellar expansion.”
Interstellar expansion, he says. Right out of a sci-fi movie, I see. For a moment, Mary Anne had considered the possibility that this whole thing was just one big hallucination, and that she was actually somewhere in a padded room, gibbering nonsense and slobbering all over herself. Teeth gritted, she shook the idea from her head, refusing to give it any more thought.
If her host had noticed any of that, he did not show it. Instead, he merely continued his story. “The Brahm were not as technologically advanced as us, but they were far more aggressive and ruthless. Chemical weapons, biologically engineered diseases, and worse, were their preferred ways of waging war. For every victory that our ch’orrds would claim, we’d lose a whole lot of lives due to fallout. In the end, we had finally managed to wipe out every last one of them, the blight they imposed on the galaxy extinguished for all time. Our victory, however, came at a great cost.”
Har’kreen paused, staring at the floor for a good ten seconds or so. By the time he began talking again, power had returned to his voice, and there was no hint of the grief that was present at the end of the previous sentence.
“It was a viral infection, way too small for even our tech to detect. It was harmless to both our ch’orrds and military staff. By the time we returned to our homes, though, it was too late to prevent the ensuing horror. It only affected the females, you see, something we hadn’t noticed because our army was composed exclusively of males. Within a week of exposure, every female of our species died a horrible, unpreventable death. We could not save a single one.” He formed a fist with his right hand, seemingly involuntarily.
“So… you’re facing extinction and you came for us?” Mary Anne asked, but it was only one of the many questions that was trying to get out through her mouth. Why do they look like us? Are we even compatible? What about what I want?
“I’d like to be able to say that the first thing I did was to pack everything up and head right to get you.” The alien bent his torso over the table, extending his arm and caressing Mary Anne across her chin and lips. She had expected to be repulsed by the touch of a stranger
, let alone an alien one, but by the time he retreated back to his place, all she could feel was a desire for more.
“Such fine skin,” Har’kreen commented, observing the fingers of his hand as if there was something of her left on them. “You alone would be worth a trip to Earth, Mary Anne.”
A flatterer. She could feel the butterflies swarm around her stomach before a realization hit her, shattering her comfort within a moment. “How do you know my name?”
“Your ID was in your pocket,” he answered, smiling for the first time since he had told his people’s story.
Great, now the alien thinks I’m stupid, too.
“So you can read our writing with those eyes of yours.” Mary Anne had avoided mentioning them, but the opportunity to do so was clearly there, so she took it. “While we’re at it, why do you look almost exactly like us, except for… those?”
“Our eyes are the only piece of our original physiology that we absolutely have to keep.” Har’kreen made himself more comfortable within his chair as he talked, visibly scanning every little lump in her bodysuit while doing so.
He likes what he sees. Mary Anne chuckled. Good, that makes two of us.
“Although it is possible for us to interface with our technology without them, the tasks of shaping the spacecraft and directing the ch’orrds are infinitely easier to perform with our own set of eyes.” As if to prove his point, Har’kreen caused the diodes in his eyes to light up again, making the wall to his far left open up and letting a single humanoid figure walk through. It was the thing that had stalked Mary Anne through the streets of Wayward last night. The very sight of it gave her the shivers.
“I apologize for any unpleasantness I might have caused to Mary Anne, Helerah of the Garoh,” it said in a disturbing emotionless voice before retreating back through the makeshift door, the portal closing behind it.
“You see?” Har’kreen boasted, the yellow lights in his eyes slowly shutting down. “Everything else about my body is functionally completely human.”
Highlander's Desire: Winter Solestice (Against All Odds Series 2) Page 13
