I’m gonna say it’s mostly creepy.
“What you see before you is actually a basic requirement of most urtok homes that intend to reproduce and create more citizens,” Loren says. My eyes pop at this, as he goes over to the huge, scary machine with the hissing liquid inside it, giving it a pat. “This is where we keep the embryos, which are fed by nutrients we are responsible for buying. Once they grow large enough, an extractor team comes and takes the infant, and we’re given a sum of money for our contribution to the survival of the urtok race.”
“You don’t have family?” I’m flabbergasted at this notion.
“Oh, we do. But our concept of family is different from the human one I assume you’re thinking of. We have a male a female partner who may live together for the sole purpose of matrimony and reproduction. But children are given to the community. Urtok are raised in what you will understand as an allo-parenting structure. They are raised by a group of urtok, and not a singular family.”
He licks his lips, relishing the explanation, taking amusement in my blank incomprehension. I’m just… family is always the same for humans. We grow up in a family unit, in a house. A lot of us can turn out to be dysfunctional, sure, but this is something else.
Despite myself, and my determination to absolutely hate the urtok and being a prisoner, I can’t help but be fascinated by this. It’s just so… alien.
I don’t ask any questions, and wait to see if he plans to continue. He does.
“We found a long time ago in our history that household families were largely responsible for creating unbalanced individuals. Parents would raise the child up to precisely follow their views, and if the parents themselves were flawed, then those flaws tended to pass onto the children as well. We had unbalanced, narrow minded individuals who had little understanding of the world around them. People become so set in their ways that reasoning became next to impossible. So… we found another way to raise a society of balanced individuals.”
Brainwashing, I suppose. That’s what I think. Perfect little children who do as the government bids, without any influence from a parent.
“It’s not as bad as you might think. We get raised by groups of urtok, who have different ways of thinking, occupations, purposes. And as a result, we grow up more likely to operate with open minds. People will slip the net, of course, but on the whole, allo-parenting has been successful.”
“Apart from the inbreeding thing, right?”
“Right.” Loren smiles thinly. “Another issue we discovered. There was some kind of mass extinction event upon our planet at one point. 99.9% of all life was wiped out. We believe only two pairs of urtok managed to survive the extinction. Although we managed to bounce our numbers into the millions, the gene similarities in our population have made more and more urtok crippled. For every urtok birth, there is a 50% chance something will be drastically wrong with them. No amount of embryo editing can cure that. It’s not sustainable. So that’s where livestock like you come in.” He inhales deeply. His brain is whirring with the information he knows. Even though he probably doesn’t expect I’ll bother to pay any attention, he obviously wants me to try and understand. Like he’s giving me a good excuse for why he’s done this to me, and because it’s such an amazing excuse that I better just accept it.
Well, no. I don’t think so. I might see how it makes sense. I don’t accept it.
“Why don’t they just have these machines elsewhere?” I jab to the… thing. The womb machine thingummy. Whatever the hell he probably calls it. “Like isn’t that kind of weird that you have babies growing in your basement?”
“It’s our responsibility to bring the baby to term,” Loren replies. “Which is why we get compensated afterwards.” He rests his palm against the glass for a moment. Examining the frothing tank, which I presume is a nutritional fluid. There’s a slot in the side where it looks like bags are slid into, or capsules. They obviously need to feed the test tube baby somehow.
I imagine a human embryo stuck in there, now. Folded up in the fetal position. There won’t be an umbilical cord, will there? Or is there something that represents a placenta in there? The image shifts. A dark pink human embryo that looks more like a squashed watermelon, attached to a plastic tube and a fake placenta. Suspended there in complete silence, without the stimulation of a mother moving or talking. Unable to hear another heartbeat.
It seems cold and lonely, somehow. Like I wonder if ever something happened like that to me, if I’ll grow up to be a hollow person. Although Loren seems completely confident of this method of raising a child, it just doesn’t feel right to me. It feels wrong, somehow.
I might not be particularly interested in having children, but this isn’t what I would like for them, if I needed to go through the process. Either way, as it’s clear I won’t be able to hold off from an alien that’s capable of burning me to nothing, chaining me, and God knows what else for long, before I become a brood mare – I find myself wondering if there’s anything I can do to make the fate of the unborn better.
When I voice these thoughts to Loren, he gives me a look like I’m completely mad.
“Haven’t you been listening? They’re getting the best possible fate available for them. They will be urtok with your livestock DNA. They will be raised as urtok. Your ways of raising are flawed.”
Yeah. I sense we’re going to have some issues on this. “My dad didn’t fail at raising me. Me and my brother turned out alright.”
Loren squints, momentarily puzzled. “Ah, yes. Brother. Sister. Your word for others of the same gene sequence. We used to have words for that, too, but they have fallen out of use, since we do not raise urtok that way.” He pauses, while I gape, struggling to think about not knowing the concept of sibling. Of growing up never feeling that type of bond or having it reinforced the same way.
The more I hear about this, the less I like.
“I advise you get used to it fast,” Loren advises. “Or you’re going to have a bad time, livestock.”
I glare at him. I’m tempted to spit in his direction, but barely manage to hold back my impulsive response.
I storm off to my newly assigned bedroom instead – a simple thing with a double bed, a wardrobe, and nothing else.
There, I lie on the bed, stare at the bland white ceiling, and sulk.
Chapter Four
My muscles end up locking at least twice while I test the boundaries of the nanochip. The first time, I wanted to see how far up the street I could go, when Loren wasn’t there, watching over me like a hawk, or the servants. Out of the twelve shops there, I can only reach eight of them. That includes the pretty flashing building at least, so I have that going for me.
The shops sell cigarettes, strong beverages, basic food for the urtok, I presume, packaged in ways I’m unfamiliar with, using brands and meat I have no clue about.
Over the next few weeks, my sanity is kept by the arcade. For that’s what the flashing sign conceals. A vast arcade which I can cover, which has gaming machines, a virtual library where I can pay a chip and get a list of intergalatical books in return. There are also multiplayer games like air hockey, and I’ve even managed to play with a few urtok in the times I’ve been there. Most of them are children, with tiny spikes sticking out of their backs, and huge amber eyes. Cute, really.
They don’t seem to have manifested their weird witchy powers at that age, which is kind of a relief. Because I can’t imagine children having those gifts would be the most responsible around. The kids seem normal, as well – or as normal as you can get when you’re an alien race with a different culture. Most know English, though there’s the odd one who doesn’t. The urtok harbour some interest in mastering the main galactic language, which makes sense if you’re abducting people.
Loren hasn’t yet forced me to bed. This confused me at first. And when I asked him why, he merely gave me a long, calculating stare, before saying, “I intend for you to do this willingly. Our children will have great fire in the
m, but if the mother conceives them wrong, then it will affect the child. Most urtok do not care, since a child is a child. But I care. Teena. So I will do my best to show that it’s not so bad.”
“You mean, aside from the whole being a prisoner thing?”
“Yes.” He inclines his head politely, before giving me an odd, salacious smirk. I don’t know what to make of that, and my guts do a writhing snake thing. I don’t think it’s a snake of attraction – more like concern that I might actually end up liking him.
Isn’t that a thing? That people end up liking their captors over time? As a type of survival and preservation instinct for the prisoner?
I’m now seriously worried I’m in the process of being brainwashed to be exactly like this. And the trouble is, I’m already starting to contemplate the idea, more than I should. Of just giving into him.
It’s the odd, errant thought. But it’s enough to make it hard to sleep at night – not from lustful desire, but from a deep-seated fear that I’m changing. That I can’t stop this change. And that my brain knows that there’s no way out, so it’s trying to alter my perception, to make the situation more bearable.
How horrible.
That means, even years from now, if I’m stuck in this same street, this house, and I let Loren have his way with me, and we pump out a few dozen babies or whatever, I’ll live in a constant ring of doubt. Of not knowing for certain whether I like him, or whether I just adapted to deal with him.
It sends icy chills down my spine.
It doesn’t help he keeps doing nice things. It would be so much easier to keep hating the snot out of him if he did mean things, if he slammed me against a wall and raped me.
Then I could hate him in relative peace.
Instead, though, he’s nice. He takes my anger and virtually ignores it, which makes me always feel like I’m a big fucking child when he’s sitting there calmly, and I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. And then he tells me that he understands what I’m going through (which is a lie), but the situation remains the same. He’s sorry that I have to go through it, but the survival of the urtok is more important than anything else.
He brings me gifts from his trips. They’re not big ones. Mostly human foods that you don’t see around this place, and a lot of them foods I’ve never been interested in. He just seems to think that as long as it’s a human food, I’ll like it. It’s a hit and miss scenario.
He always seems to expect me to be grateful as well, but it’s like – how does he expect me to be fucking grateful when I’m in the whole shitty mess because of him? Him and his stupid race.
He even has the audacity to act fucking hurt when I’m not grateful, but keeps trying anyway. It’s annoying, because it makes me feel bad, when I know I’m not the one at fault. This situation isn’t my choice.
Well… it was my choice out of a bad one and a worse one, but if I had a choice at all, I wouldn’t be here to begin with. I wouldn’t have flown close to the planet to be caught by one of their snares. And the rest of the crew would be free. Instead, all of us have had our lives changed forever.
Because of me.
I’m the one who potentially got the others killed, because I didn’t do my research and steer clear of urtok territory. That’s another concept I’ll struggle to live with. Which means that if Loren wants to have his dumb urtok babies, he’ll have to force them out of me, because there’s no way I’ll ever be happy at the thought of my friends being dead or suffering. That guilt will eat away at me relentlessly.
It already invades my dreams. It makes me toss and turn at night. My dad and brother will be worrying as well, because I can’t contact them. Short of having my mind completely wiped and all trace of my personality gone, this will be a recurring theme.
Loren knows about this, at least, because I’ve screamed it in his face many times. Just to get his calm, apologetic response. Just to know that there’s not much I can do to change the outcome. Always appearing so regretful with those annoying amber eyes, that stupid nice face which would be a lot less nice with my fist in it, provided I can attack that far before being restrained.
Just to make everything that much better, I know I do find him attractive. And I hate that about myself most of all. That’s not something I’ve yelled at him about, anyway.
At this moment in time, I’m in the library with him, and there’s a book open before me, one called Endless Travel. The main character’s a pilot of an obsolete ship, and has to go on the run from the dread Federation Empire – made up, of course. I’m about halfway through. I like it, because it’s easy for me to picture space, and to place myself in the shoes of the pilot. Who also seems to be involved in a rather steamy love triangle. My money’s on the fact they all end up being together in some weird three-way relationship.
He frowns when he sees me scowl, even as he places something on the desk in front of me.
“Like this, you won’t ever find any happiness,” Loren says. He appears frustrated at me for always being so sullen and insolent. I get the impression he’s the laughing stock of his kind right now for being so lenient with me. Although part of me feels bad for this fact, because I do see that he’s trying a lot harder than a “master” would do for his livestock – it doesn’t shift away the internal guilt inside.
“You can get me all the wonderful gifts you like,” I say, not bothering to peek inside the bag. “But it doesn’t take away the core issues I have. You can bring me the most delicious food in the world, and I’ll enjoy it. But it’s not going to take away my bad dreams.”
His hand balls into a fist. His lips curl in anger. “You know I can’t free you. And even if I did, you’d be gone at first light, and I’d be minus an alien, whom I spent an obscene amount of money on to start making children with. At this rate, I will have to force you.”
“Then do it,” I say. “Just don’t expect me to be happy about it. This isn’t a way to live. I’m not a mule that’s going to bend over and accept it. Others might, but no. Not me. You took away my freedom. My family. My friends. There’s no way I can be okay with that.”
Loren approaches me, a growl building up in his throat. He lifts his fingers, and the red-hot glow starts to smolder at the edges. “It’d be easier for me to get someone compliant. You’re not worth the effort.”
“Shame you wasted that money then, isn’t it?” I smile winsomely at him. My body is rigid in defiance. “That’s the price of having someone strong willed to insert into your breeding programme. They’re strong willed for a reason.”
Honestly, I’m bluffing, because I don’t feel particularly strong willed at the moment. I feel like a petulant, stubborn child who is too big for her boots, trying to punch above her weight, when Loren can just whisk away al semblance of power I have in the blink of an eye.
It’s that easy for him. It continually puzzles me that he keeps trying to stick to his word. There’s no benefit in it for him, because I don’t think he’s able to grasp the concept that just being nice to someone isn’t enough.
Though my guts writhe in guilt – another poor foundation for a relationship – I won’t back down. The children he so desires will be “imperfect.” Though if I’m honest, I don’t think it will make the slightest difference.
But I’m not about to tell him that. I’m not that altruistic. Far from it. If I can possibly push this until I’m killed or freed – both outcomes will work for me.
He glowers at me for a moment, and I wonder if he is going to breach it at last, and just do away with the pretence of my freedom. I’ll need to remind myself that it’s worth it. It’s worth being like this.
Anything is better than allowing others to crush you. No matter the situation you find yourself in.
Loren finally stalks away, leaving me to myself. Leaving me unblemished.
Chapter Five
I don’t see Loren for four days. I’m given no warning of his trip, but I rarely am allowed to know, anyway. And I simply entertain myself. Brood. Th
ink about my family at home, and my crew members, scattered or dead. I think about Loren’s attempts at kindness, but never once is he apologetic for being my master. It’s like he’s kind and generous in all aspects – except when it comes to my freedom, or in processing the guilt I’m burdened with.
Someone like him can’t understand. Since ultimately, no matter how nice he may be, it’s all for one purpose. And not because he actually cares for me. No matter what he says.
The words are an illusion. Still, the guilt remains, eating away at me. Still, I wonder if I’m doing the wrong thing, and giving him too much of a hard time. If I’m being stubborn and idiotic for standing by my thoughts, or doing what I should be doing. What all humans should be doing.
On the fourth day, I go again to the arcade. My favorite games there are the spaceship simulators, where you have to either dodge asteroids and enemies, or race against other players who try to exploit any weaknesses in you.
I’ve had some curious urtok lean over to watch me on the screen, act surprised when they see how good I am, then act confused when I inform them I’m a pilot. Just because I haven’t touched a spaceship in weeks doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly lost the skills. It doesn’t work like that.
It would be nice if I could start making friends, but I also know that if I do, it would make me feel even worse once the inevitable happens – that I escape, or am killed. Still, there are some familiar faces in the crowd which I like. I also hear them refer to me as “The human who can fly.”
Not livestock. So that’s nice.
I’m just racing through an asteroid belt, dodging chunks of ice rock like a pro, when someone discreetly taps my shoulder. I glance upwards to see – and my jaw drops – Theresa.
An explosion upon the screen denotes that my ship’s crashed into an asteroid, and Game Over flashes.
To Love A Hitman Page 56
