by Amber Stuart
Am I simply seeing a coincidence? Am I trying to generate a link where none exists? Or is there someone targeting women with Kaiser’s Syndrome for some reason? I could think of a few theories as to why, and the most predominant one would be medical experimentation, but that makes little sense. I’m certain many of us would volunteer for experimentation if we could get the funding and the attention necessary to make Kaiser’s Syndrome a known and easily recognizable disease with public urgency for a cure.
It’s true pharmaceutical companies are often motivated by profit, and they’ve certainly done underhanded or shady things in the past, but it seems beyond the norm even in that industry to actually kidnap people on whom to experiment. So what is the explanation?
I eagerly await any theories, and I encourage you to share this post. Only through public demand will any action be taken by the authorities. Right now, disappearances are scattered over multiple jurisdictions worldwide, and I’m not even certain anyone has made the connection besides myself. Help me to change that, loyal readers.
After finishing the post, she sat back as a wave of exhaustion swept through her. She had certainly depleted all of her energy today, and suddenly all she wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for a thousand years. Knowing it would be a while before anything started happening with the blog post, and assuming she was being wildly optimistic that any public official would act on the information contained therein anyway, she decided to have an early night.
Concern for her missing friends filled her mind, but it was no match for the pure physical exhaustion in her ravaged and withered body. She hated being at the mercy of the disease, which trapped her in a useless body and zapped all of her energy. As she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t help indulging in a slight fantasy, one in which her friends and the other women with Kaiser’s Syndrome were taken for a good reason and a noble purpose, one that resulted in a cure for everyone. She wasn’t normally so Pollyannaish, but on the edge of sleep, she indulged the optimistic thought until unconsciousness swept over her.
Chapter Two
It had been almost a week since her blog post, and while Jada certainly hadn’t forgotten about it, it had slipped to the back of her mind in a way. There had been somewhat of a flurry in the first few days, and it had received the most hits of any of her blog posts ever, along with countless retweets on Twitter and shares on Facebook, but all of the excitement and buzz generated from the article had done nothing to interest the authorities.
Jada continued trying to contact her friends, and she grew more alarmed as two others stopped posting on the forum and didn’t respond to their emails any longer. She didn’t have phone numbers for those women, so she had no other way to contact them, but her concern grew.
On the forum, the women were discussing ways to protect themselves, and Jada wished she had a gun like some of the ladies. It had always seemed like an unnecessary device before, since she lived in an urban area with police that responded quickly, but now that they weren’t responding at all, she was feeling weak and terrified, which pissed her off. She had fought long and hard for her independence, and she resented that whatever was happening could make her feel frightened to even open her door long enough to check her mail or arrange to take the bus to the market.
Acting from this apprehension, she was cautious that afternoon when her doorbell rang. It could be her latest delivery from Amazon, or it could be a neighbor. Perhaps it was even her stepsister, though that seemed unlikely since Erica was firmly immersed in her own world and only stopped by to visit her two or three times a year despite living within fifty miles.
Grasping the poker from the fireplace, she moved her electric chair to the door, peeking out through the peephole that had been lowered and modified so she could see it comfortably from her chair. A strange man stood on the other side. She couldn’t see all of him, but he appeared a bit bland in his dark suit. “Who is it?” she asked through the door.
“Are you Jada Washington, author of Jada’s Blog?”
Jada’s stomach tightened with dread that she had no logical reason to feel. The unknown was scary enough, and suspecting she was being targeted—well, her and every other woman with Kaiser’s Syndrome—was plenty of reason to be cautious and wary. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“My name is Ryland Breese, and I’m here to investigate the disappearances of the women you mentioned in your blog.”
“Show me your badge.”
He hesitated. “I don’t have a badge,” he said softly.
She shook her head, a harsh laugh escaping her. “Do you really think I’m going to let you in without a badge? I don’t know who you are.”
Without awaiting a reply, she backed away from the door before turning her chair to face it a few feet away. She was hoping he had gone away, but when he knocked again, she gritted her teeth.
“Please, Ms. Washington, I only want a few moments of your time.”
“Or maybe you want to kidnap me and make me disappear like my friends. Go away now before I call the police.”
There was silence, and it lengthened to the point where she was starting to feel optimistic that the person on the other side of the door had given up and chosen to go away. If he was really investigating the disappearances, he would produce a warrant or a badge before he got into her home. If he had other, more nefarious plans, at least she wouldn’t make it easy on him by opening her door and inviting him in for sweet tea and abduction.
Just as she had taken a deep breath of relief, the door started to glow with a golden light that emanated under the door sill and around the cracks. She watched with openmouthed shock as the locks unlocked themselves, all unlocking in a neat and orderly fashion one after the other. As a final step, the chain fell out of the plate before dropping to the wall. She lifted her poker with abject terror as the door slowly opened, and the bland man stepped inside.
“What are you doing? Get out of my house.”
He ignored her, pausing to close and lock her door again, doing so by placing a palm against the door. After she was locked in with him, he took a couple of steps toward her before pausing and holding up his hands. “Please, Jada, I mean you no harm.”
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
He sighed, and then the air around him seemed to twitch and vibrate for a moment. It was like watching blurred pay-per-view at fast-forward. One second, he was the nondescript man, and the next, he was far taller, far more imposing, and anything but bland. His skin was brown, perhaps even a few shades lighter than her own, but with golden luminescence that was beautiful and hypnotic at the same time. He had tawny brown eyes with that same gold shine to them, and his features were strong, and while he wasn’t classically handsome, he was certainly compelling to look at.
He’d also gotten taller and far broader in the shoulders, which emphasized his narrow waist and flat stomach. The dark suit had morphed into a simple black garment that covered him from neck to ankle.
She sagged in her electric wheelchair, shaking her head as she tried to deny what she was seeing; what she had just seen. “What’s going on?”
He bowed his head slightly, and it appeared to be a gesture of respect. “As I said, I’m Ryland Breese of the Dazon Empire. I’m an inquisitor, which is akin to an earthling detective. Your blog post caught my attention. You have similar occurrences noted that match events occurring in an investigation by my home world. I’ve come to Earth to find the answer to where your friends have disappeared to.”
She shook her head, gripping the poker even tighter between both hands. “I don’t buy it. Why would some alien dude care about a bunch of missing Earth women?”
She wanted to say he arched a brow, but she realized he had no eyebrows. He just had a thick mane of golden brown hair that flowed from his forehead down to the back of his neck, though there was no hair on the sides of his head. She didn’t know if that was a deliberate styling choice, or if perhaps they didn’t grow
hair there.
Or perhaps she was going crazy by believing this was actually an alien. It seemed far more likely it was someone pretending to be an alien, simply because that was what logic suggested. However, if this was a pretense, the person had certainly done a good job of presenting an alien appearance, and how had they managed that trick with her door?
“May I sit down, Jada?”
She almost snapped at him, wanting to demand when they had become familiar enough to be on a first-name basis, but if he really was an alien, it seemed like the kind of lapse in etiquette she should just let slide. Still clinging fiercely to her poker, she waved a hand toward the recliner in her living room. She had gotten rid of all the other furniture, because it impeded the path of her chair, and visitors were infrequent. “Have a seat, Mr. Alien.”
“Ryland Breese,” he said for the third time as he walked past her, nodding his head again in that same fashion that suggested it was a show of respect. He sat down on her lounger, and though it was cushiony and overstuffed, he looked far too big for it. It was like an adult trying to squeeze into a child’s recliner.
Any urge she had to laugh faded when she met his golden-brown eyes again. There was genuine concern reflected there, and also what looked like…guilt? She wasn’t certain. If he was an alien, could he even feel guilt? She wheeled herself a bit closer, but certainly not within easy grabbing range, and set the poker across the arms of her wheelchair in a decisive fashion, clasping the metal rod in both hands as she stared at him. “Explain to me why any aliens would care about earthlings?”
“May I share a little of the history of our empire with you?” At her nod, he said, “The Dazon Empire is slowly dying out. Three generations ago, we were at war with an enemy who unleashed a biological weapon upon us. We managed to defeat the enemy, but it was only as the war came to an end that we started to see the effects of the biological weapon.
“The primary effect it had was to render Dazon females sterile. Some women were still getting pregnant, but far fewer than we needed to keep our species alive.”
She made a small sound of distress on behalf of the women, finding sympathy for them even if this was all some sort of elaborate hoax, or the women didn’t even exist. She could empathize, having had to give up her dreams of motherhood upon realizing she had Kaiser’s Syndrome.
She couldn’t risk passing on the disease, and with rapid progression, she hadn’t been in a proper state of health to get pregnant anyway, even if there had been a prospective father in the picture at that point. Her fiancé had been long gone, disappearing shortly after her diagnosis and before things even got really bad. Barry never would have made it through seeing her confined to a wheelchair and having to adapt to that kind of life.
“Our scientists have done what they can, and some genetic manipulation is possible, but now when there is a successful and healthy pregnancy, eighty percent of the time, it results in a male child. We’re not certain if that is a direct side effect of the biological weapon, and it was designed to work away, or if it’s a result of the genetic manipulation our scientists use, and the fact that males seem to be immune to the effects of the biological weapon.”
“So you have very few women who can get pregnant, and when they do, four out of five babies born are male?”
Ryland Breese nodded again. “Yes, that’s exactly right.”
She frowned at him. “It sounds like a terrible problem for your Empire, but I still don’t see the connection with my missing friends.”
He nodded. “For the past generation, we’ve been desperately searching for a genetic match among other species, hoping to find women who could bear Dazon young before we’re completely extinct. It’s been slow going, and politics hampers how to proceed should we find a compatible species. There is debate between simply snatching the women and forcing them to bear our young, or attempting to solicit their compliance with material things, or perhaps treaties and information exchanges with the governments of the planet involved.”
“And have you reached a consensus?”
He hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. “The only resolution our General Council has fully embraced is that the women must be compliant and consenting. We might be on the verge of extinction, but that doesn’t justify kidnapping a race of sentient beings to save our own. We don’t have a firm plan in mind, and there is an outspoken minority that protests this. The High Council has never given their official position, but it’s well known they align with the minority.”
Her head was starting to hurt. It was simply from the overload of information and trying to absorb the fact that maybe, just maybe, this guy was a legitimate alien and not some actor or hoax. “What…do you think Earth women are compatible?”
Ryland shrugged. “I’m not certain. I’m not tasked with the scientific investigation into finding a compatible species. I know Earth women have been tested, but it’s my understanding there was no clear outcome. However, the scientist in charge went on hiatus two months ago, as did a small number of his core team. I’ve been unable to find any trace of Jorvak Ha or the others. It’s my supposition that perhaps Dr. Ha found a link between our species’ genetics and a small subset of your species’ genetics.”
She let out a ragged exhale. “You’re going on the assumption that women with Kaiser’s Syndrome are genetically compatible with Dazon men?” The idea of being intimately…compatible with the golden alien squished into her recliner was distracting and threatened to derail her from the conversation as erotic images flickered through her mind. Forcing her attention back to him when he nodded, she asked, “And what was Jorvak Ha’s position on how to handle finding a compatible species?”
His expression closed, and his lips tightened as he radiated evident anger. “Dr. Ha firmly believes we should take the women with or without their consent and use their genetic material as needed.”
Her head spun, and she slumped even further in her chair. “Do you think my friends have been abducted by aliens?” She let out a laugh, but it held a slight edge of hysteria. “I want to say that sounds crazy, but it’s actually the most logical theory I’ve heard or come up with myself since I started noticing their disappearances. Do you know where my friends are, and where the other women have been taken?”
“No, not yet, but I hope to figure that out with your assistance, Jada.”
She blinked at him, shocked that she was in this position. Was she really having a chat with some intergalactic detective-type who was investigating missing persons cases of galactic proportion? Were her friends really being held as some sort of breeders for a desperate race of aliens on the verge of extinction? It truly was no crazier than some of the other theories she had come up with or had been suggested on her blog. With a helpless shrug, she said, “I’ll help however I can, but I’m not going to be very useful to you in this chair, Mr. Breese.”
“Call me Ryland, Jada. And if you permit me to do so, I can solve that problem.”
Chapter Three
She stared at herself in the mirror in disbelief. It had taken some persuading on his part to convince her to accept an injection from an alien device, especially when he had explained it held nanobots. They would quickly adapt to her human genetics and restore her body to a state of perfect health. They wouldn’t be able to remove Kaiser’s Syndrome, because they couldn’t reprogram her DNA or remove the fragment of the ninth chromosome that shouldn’t be there, but they would keep her body in a healthy balance, and she would no longer be confined to the chair.
With that promise, she had been willing to try anything, and now, less than an hour later, she stood in front of her mirror and admired herself.
She’d always been on the curvy side, and the last eight years being ill, with six of those confined to a wheelchair, had added some extra pounds despite regular physical therapy. Now, she was in the best shape of her life, better than she’d ever been. She still had soft curves and a rounded tummy, but she could s
ee the biceps flex under the skin when she moved her arms, and she could feel the rock hardness of her abs beneath the soft layer of flesh.
He knocked on the door, interrupting her visual inspection of her changed body, calling, “Are you all right, Jada?”
“Yes, I’m coming.” She cleared her throat and turned her attention to rummaging in her closet again, barely tearing herself away from the entrancing sight of her body in the mirror. Her skin was gleaming and perfectly mocha-brown, with no blemishes at all. The mole on her shoulder was gone, as was scar on her knee from the time she had fallen off her bike in third grade.
Even her hair was shiny and flowing, the kinky curls looking as though they’d had a fresh salon treatment. She felt beautiful and amazing, and that brought a load of guilt as she hastily slid on a dress that was now too large before walking—walking, how good that felt—out of the closet and across her bedroom floor on bare feet.
She experienced guilt that her friends were still in various stages of poor health when there was technology to treat them all. She opened the door and took a deep breath before stepping out to join her new alien partner in crime fighting. If that wasn’t the strangest turn of events of the day, her physical transformation was certainly a close second.
“This is amazing,” she said. “I feel wonderful. I feel better than I ever have in my life, even when I was in my late teens and early twenties and full of energy, before I started getting sick. Thank you for this, Ryland Breese.”
“Just Ryland, please.” He inclined his head. “I’m happy to see the nanobots were able to communicate with your genetics. It also confirms my theory that women with Kaiser’s Syndrome are compatible with Dazon males. Which means…”
“My missing friends and all the other women are probably somewhere at the mercy of your rogue scientist.”
