The Dark Path of Romance: Find the aliens. Steal their toys. Save the world. Mostly, steal their toys (Kim and Angel Book 2)

by J. Judkins

  What was it Naomi had said, back at the warehouse? Something about conquering the world in the near future, or rather, the past? She’d even laughed maniacally at the end!

  That settled things in Kim’s mind. The retroactive victory theory seemed not only plausible, but certain. The proof was in her hands. It even explained why it hadn’t already happened. A foreign memory would need to be carefully designed. Anything less, and it might fall apart. That was where the local experts came in. “What would the humans believe?” the aliens would ask. They’d begin work from there.

  Maris Dorman’s idea of a “credible” invasion story, with the aliens kicking ass with a relative snap of their fingers made sense in retrospect. Which countries had resisted the longest? Who had surrendered first? What was the political fallout? All of that information would need to be programmed in. It may not even need to be specific. Perhaps they’d only need the highlights, not the details.

  Kim looked through the window, taking in the endless row of gravestones. Had the aliens buried token bodies to satisfy the skeptics? If she dug up a coffin and looked inside, would there be anything to find?

  Maybe she should find a shovel and find out.

  Kim hefted her trusty rock and stepped over the remains of the broken window. She hadn’t seen a hardware store on her way in, but there had to be something out there she could use.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Kim’s mind wandered as she returned to the streets. She started thinking about the cost of death.

  Gamers such as herself were intimately familiar with the concept. Kim had been killed thousands of times throughout her online career, and had brought death to countless others. The aliens seemed to have duplicated the process in real life. Through the use of puppet androids, the grim finality of death had been downgraded into a costly learning experience.

  What troubled Kim was the expense.

  In an online world, death was a mere inconvenience. Players would spend a few seconds staring at their own corpse before being respawned and thrust back into the action. The price they paid was miniscule, measured in seconds.

  But if an alien were killed, their new surrogate body would be substantial and real. Kim remembered Naomi complaining about substandard gear and old technology. Was this a contradiction? Shouldn’t burning through android bodies be expensive? If her bosses were as greedy and stingy as Naomi seemed to imply, did this mean that spare bodies were cheap and easy to make?

  “Ahem.”

  Kim stopped in place. “I should pay more attention.”

  “That’s good advice,” a male voice confirmed from behind her. “Don’t move. And put your hands up.”

  Kim raised her hands and turned around slowly.

  A minion-type alien stood next to the twisted ruins of what might have been a jewelry store. Kim couldn’t help but notice a small, cylindrical device wrapped twice around his wrist like an armband. It came to a point just below his open hand, pointed dead center at her chest.

  “What now?” Kim asked.

  “Don’t move,” he said once again, and then shot her.

  Kim was hit by a burst of sticky, yellowish fibers. It washed over her like a warm, sentient liquid, wrapping around her from her chest down to her knees. The horrid smell reminded her of the six-month-old Chinese food she’d once found deep in a dark corner of her refrigerator. She spun her arms about in a desperate attempt to keep from falling and barely managed to keep her balance.

  Once she was certain she wasn’t about to fall, she got angry. “Seriously? What was all that about? Why did you say ‘don’t move’ if you were planning on shooting me anyway?”

  “The tangler is a short-range weapon, and not very accurate. I didn’t want you dodging out of the way.”

  “Oh,” Kim said. She grinned. “You might want to look out behind you.”

  “Nice try.” From his tone of voice, Kim could imagine the minion smirking behind his mask. “You should have used that trick before—hrk!”

  The green-skinned monster dropped the unconscious minion at its feet. It then turned its permanently snarling face on Kim.

  “Well, Angel, it’s been fun,” Kim quipped, wishing she could take a step or two away. “But you can take off the mask now.” She tossed her head back toward the welcome center, careful not to overbalance herself. “You would not believe what I found!”

  The creature stalked forward.

  “Unless, of course,” Kim hastened to add, “you’re not Angel at all. You’re one of those aliens in a clever, rubber monster costume. Which is very impressive, by the way! I should let you know that I didn’t find out anything. Nothing at all. I spent the entire day wandering around and didn’t notice a thing. Nothing to see. Nothing to do. A big waste of time. So, yeah, you think you could get me out of this glue-gun mess and show me the nearest exit? I really should be getting back.”

  The monster moved behind Kim. Kim attempted to twist to follow, but doing so threatened her already precarious balance.

  The green abomination grasped Kim’s arms and gently but firmly pulled them down until they touched her sides. The instant her arms came into contact with the semi-liquid fibers, they became as enmeshed as the rest of her.

  “Did I mention that there’s someone looking for me?” Kim tried again, her voice rising as her heart rate continued to skyrocket. “She’s very protective, dangerous, beautiful, annoying, and sometimes does romantic things that tend to go overboard, and what the serious hell, Angel! Let me go! I don’t appreciate being hostage-girl all the time!”

  The monster tucked Kim under one arm and broke into a run. All Kim could see was a disorienting, sideways view of the passing scenery.

  “Dammit, Angel! This isn’t fun anymore!”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Kim woke up to darkness, her head pounding as if she’d gone an entire week without caffeine. The last thing she remembered was being carried hither and yon through darkened tunnels that smelled of mildew, old chemicals, and rot.

  She sat up slowly. The air felt cool and damp on her skin. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose. The background stink permeating the air reminded her of some of the more noxious chemicals from her chemistry class in high school.

  The dim shadows gave way to details as her eyes adjusted. She was in a jail cell. Or rather, the bare bones of one. Steel bars with two crossbars, with not even a sleeping cot to break the monotony. Kim had been lying unconscious on a cold, stone floor.

  Melanie was in the cage closest to her. She wore a combination of well-dressed and filthy, looking as if she’d been out on a date when she’d been overtaken by the sudden urge to go spelunking in a bat-infested cave.

  Naomi’s appearance seemed ordinary in comparison. She was also in her own cell, wearing what appeared to be a straightjacket. Her legs were hobbled in a similar fashion.

  The minions occupied the remaining cells, grouped together two by two. Most were hard to see in their dark armor, but one in particular stood out to Kim. “Is the nineteenth-century Englishman with you?”

  “That’s right,” Melanie said. “Samuel is a big game monster hunter. Apparently.”

  Kim let it go. Thinking about it too deeply could only hurt her brain.

  This is ridiculous. Decades of nothing, and now I can’t go more than a few days without being abducted? How many times does this make in the last month? Three? Four?

  “She’s awake, and nothing’s happening,” Naomi observed. “Does this disprove your theory, or prove it?”

  “I don’t think it proves anything one way or the other,” Melanie said. “Why would Angel do any of this?”

  “To engineer cooperation,” Naomi said. “I believe she’s hoping we’ll come together in the face of adversity. Kim has been placed in the same boat. This is significant. In my judgment, it seems clear that Angel intends for us to unite and decide upon a course of action before the monster returns and metaphorically wrecks the boat and kills us all.”

  Melanie to
uched her open hand to her chest. “That’s surprising.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You actually used an idiom the proper way.”

  “Your words frustrate me,” Naomi complained. “I was hoping you’d be impressed by my point, not impressed by the words conveying my point. And not being able to properly express my frustration through the use of hand gestures is equally as frustrating.”

  “Don’t misunderstand. I am impressed. It makes sense to me.”

  “Kim?” Naomi leaned her right side against the bars. “Now that you’re awake, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts? Melanie and I are attempting to reach a consensus. Do you have an opinion?”

  Kim attempted to speak, but was overcome with a coughing fit. She held up a hand. “Sorry,” she rasped. “Something down here doesn’t agree with me. Why do you think Angel is behind this?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Naomi said.

  Melanie chimed in. “I still don’t get why Naomi is assuming Angel is strong enough to beat everyone senseless in a third-rate monster costume.”

  “What did you and Angel discuss when we stopped by your office this morning?” Kim asked.

  “Nothing of consequence,” Naomi groused. “She wouldn’t answer my specific questions. Instead, she insisted that those questions would be answered if I came here.” She tossed her head, apparently to convey that “here” meant Ravenwood in general. “There have been recent developments, but I’m uncertain how her love-is-the-answer assertion applies in our current situation. Do you have any insight?”

  Kim suspected she already had the answer. “Give me a second,” she said, stalling for time. “Let me think.”

  She and Angel had argued about this very subject. Angel wanted to turn Naomi into an ally, while Kim believed stopping Naomi should be the priority.

  Both Naomi and Melanie were still in the dark, Kim realized. Neither had recognized Angel as the ultimate idealistic romantic. The clues were there, but they hadn’t put it together.

  Dare she let on what she knew? If Naomi were made aware of Angel’s plans to manipulate her into becoming her friend, she would probably resent it.

  Likewise, the thought of confronting Naomi with her discoveries didn’t sit well with her. Kim was more interested in seeing how her overly romantic girlfriend’s plans were going to play out.

  Angel had formed her list based upon the assumption the aliens could manipulate memory. Joseph Friedman had been on that list. Kim hadn’t put the clues together, not even after investigating Friedman had led them to Naomi. What else had Angel been right about? What other facts had she scoffed at, dismissing out of hand?

  Angel’s origin story came to mind. She’d told Kim she’d been part of a rescue mission. After it failed, she’d attempted to kill herself rather than let herself be captured. Her recollections ended at the moment of her supposed death.

  At the time, Kim had dismissed the story as outright nonsense.

  But what if it were true?

  What if Angel believed as Naomi did, that death represented nothing more than a harmless transfer from one body to the next?

  After Angel’s body was taken to Blackgate, Dr. Harrison set out to discover everything there was to know about her, to extract every piece of alien technology he could possibly extract. Angel had come alive and escaped years later, but her freedom came with a steep price. Her memories, her very identity, had been lost.

  Their stories seemed to differ only in that Harrison claimed to have created Angel from the ground up.

  But what if both were true?

  What if Angel had been so critically damaged that everyone involved had simply assumed she was dead? What if Harrison had helped Angel regenerate, and afterwards, had taken credit for bringing her to life from nothing?

  But if that were true, it would mean . . .

  “I know how Angel escaped,” Kim blurted.

  All eyes turned to her.

  “I think you’ve been tricked. The fact that Angel exists is proof of it.”

  “Explain,” Naomi said.

  “You and the others don’t have an ‘original body’ being held in stasis at some undisclosed location. This body is you. The real you.”

  “Explain more.”

  Kim rolled her eyes. “You’re assuming that you’re controlling your body as if it were a puppet, right?”

  The minions gasped and murmured amongst themselves.

  Kim ignored them and pressed on. “Do your people have the technology to imprint an individual’s memories and experiences onto a new, fresh body?”

  “Yes,” Naomi said slowly. “That’s within our power. But that isn’t what we’re doing.”

  “What happens if the body you’re using is killed?”

  “I’d be given a new one.”

  “And what happens to this current body, if that happens?”

  “It would eventually be recovered and destroyed.”

  “Why destroyed?” Kim asked.

  “Because it would be dead.”

  “What if somebody found the body and took it away before your people could recover it?”

  “I’d imagine they’d dispose of it, as they would any other corpse.”

  Kim hid a grin. Naomi had inadvertently confirmed that she and her people were as much alive as anyone else. Her statement even gave Dr. Harrison’s android theory unexpected credibility. When Harrison had been swearing up and down that Angel had been designed and not born, Kim had assumed he’d been referring to Angel as a well-designed robot. Naomi’s words confirmed that Angel wasn’t one or the other. She was a hybrid of both. Angel may not have ever been born, but she was definitely alive.

  Kim took a moment to reflect. Sometimes it’s scary, being so right all the time.

  “Nope. Wouldn’t happen,” Kim said. “They’d spirit it away and do an autopsy. Reverse-engineer the living hell out of it. My point is, your puppet theory is too sloppy. It doesn’t work.”

  Naomi’s eyes narrowed in indignation. “It isn’t a theory,” she spat.

  “Would you like to hear my theory?”

  “I don’t care one whit about your theory.”

  “Here’s my theory. I know you’re convinced Angel is one of you, or you wouldn’t have told her anything.”

  “And yet, here I am, openly discussing these sensitive matters with you,” Naomi mocked.

  Good point. “That doesn’t matter. I’m thinking that Angel had a similar history to yours. Perhaps she was given a few superficial augmentations to help her blend in with the locals, but she’s clearly running around in her original body. She’s certainly not operating it from somewhere else. Would you agree with that?”

  Naomi gave a reluctant nod.

  “I believe Angel spent the majority of her time thinking the body she inhabited didn’t belong to her, just as you do.”

  “Is there a point to this?”

  Kim leaned closer. “Every single one of you has access to a central computer. Am I right? You’re assuming that this link allows you to control your puppet body from wherever it is you’re controlling it from. But what if the link is sending constant updates back to the computer, instead? New memories, new experiences, all of it. Everything that’s important when you imprint a person’s personality onto a new body.”

  “I suspect I know where you’re going with this,” Naomi said. “It’s far more likely that Angel escaped in her own body.”

  Kim shook her head. “She told me the whole story. I didn’t believe her then, but I do now. Her rescue mission failed. When she realized she was going to be captured, she did her best to kill herself. Scientists found her body and took it away. They held her captive for years until the day she woke up and escaped.

  “Now, here’s where it gets tricky. Let’s go back to the day she was taken. Those in charge realized that Angel wasn’t coming back. So, what do you do? If Angel is running a puppet, you cut her strings and call it a day. Her old body is conside
red dead, and Angel gets a new one to control. You assume the humans are too stupid to realize what they have.”

  Kim put a finger to her forehead, feigning puzzlement. “But wait . . . Angel woke up in captivity years later. How does that make sense? How could a puppet body wake up without a puppet master pulling her strings? The answer is, she couldn’t! The fact that Angel exists is proof your puppet theory is wrong.”

  Kim’s eyes burned with intensity. “Now, let’s run with my theory. Assume Angel was tricked. Her body is hers, but she lives her entire life thinking she’s running a puppet body. Angel attempts to kill herself but fails. The computer is still getting updates. The link is active. Those in charge know Angel is still alive. They’d like to activate an Angel Mark II clone with an up-to-date personality, but there’s a problem. If the original Angel ever finds her way back, she’d know with absolute certainty that the body she inhabits is her original body. That can’t be allowed to happen.

  “Now we get into what I know for certain. Angel’s memories were lost, but from the way she talks about it, those memories were taken from her. Did you ever wonder how we found you? She wrote up a list, based on the assumption that your people could selectively erase and manipulate memory. I think that once those in charge realized Angel wasn’t coming back, they sent a signal to erase her memories and activated Mark II.

  “The fact that Angel exists proves that everything you believe to be true is nothing more than a lie. That’s how they keep control. None of your people recognized Angel because she’d been expunged from the record and quite literally forgotten.”

  Kim paused to take a deep breath. “Now, for the final proof. I think everyone would agree that memory manipulation is the path of least resistance. Instead of doing actual work, dropping bombs and shooting people, you write a memory and convince everyone that the world was already conquered years ago. Easier that way. Less dangerous. Certainly less expensive. You remember that thing we found?”

  “The sex toy?” Naomi asked.