by Ellen Mint
Nolan snorted. “Unlikely. The Kirkan would not concern themselves with such trivialities as finding an actual example of a species to mimic. They are, if you will excuse the generality, brutes. No finesse, no skill. They march in and take whatever they want. Which is everything.”
“Is Kirkan his name or…?” Fuck, I was about to ask if it was his species. And Nolan is staring at you funny. Aliens are real. Get it together. “I don’t understand. Did someone put a…a price on my head for my research?”
I felt myself shrinking at the look of vast confusion in Nolan’s eyes. Why couldn’t I stop sounding stupid around him? “Oh!” he suddenly shouted, his disappointed look snapping to a smile. “You think it’s like those cowboy movies. No. It’s not a bounty for a life. It’s… How to explain? There is a galactic market for knowledge, and new, never before discovered information, is worth much to the collection. Whoever inputs that knowledge gains the bounty. The greater the impact, the better the payout.”
Was he saying there was a vast alien market that traded only in research and knowledge? It sounded fantastic! To gather with like-minded individuals across the cosmos and share equally in… My thought paused as I stared at the shoulder of a man who nearly died trying to fend off one of these knowledge procurers. Even alien academia came with poison.
“So, he wants the research? My research? Silly, stupid, no one ever thought it applicable research. Is it worth much?”
Nolan smiled brightly. “Enough to buy a star system.”
“Fuck.” That had to be a lot. “But why kill me? What could that get him?”
“Because you haven’t finished it yet. Kirkans are brutes, but not without wiles.”
“That makes even less sense. He’d be left with a half-finished project and have to complete it himself. Assuming there even is an answer to be found. Most of research is arriving at a non-answer, like peeling away at an onion only to find a rock in the middle.” My bare feet began to pad around his palatial kitchen. The more I moved, the toastier they felt. Did he have heated tile in here? “Unless his concern isn’t in the finished work but in me replicating my research and passing it on to someone else…”
“Who could input it into the galactic data banks and take credit before the Kirkan would,” Nolan interrupted my thoughts, halting my walking and pontificating. I watched him glide the tip of his teeth across his bottom lip, which had a crumb of pie lingering in the crease. “Here I feared it’d take me all night to explain this to you. I should have learned to not underestimate your skill, Trini.”
“Well, I…” I stopped staring at his lips, wondering what it’d be like to lick the sugar off them. Instead, my stomach somersaulted into a belly flop and my cheeks burned. “Why kill me before he even had the research, the knowledge in his hands?”
“Did I not mention their brutish nature? They are, on the whole, the type to split a skull open first, then ask questions of the eyeless sockets later.”
I stared hard at the man that rescued me. Who deftly dispatched an alien with tentacles in its eyes. Who looked and felt completely human.
God. My gaze darted down the wide chest and lingered where the gray pants clung to his data set. Very human and very male. Almost obscenely so.
“Who are you?” I asked. And why was it suddenly so hot in here?
Nolan coughed and raked through his sheered hair. Water droplets splattered on the counter which he stared at instead of me. “That is… You’re owed an explanation.” Sighing, he turned and gazed across his massive living room.
How was he even hotter in profile? Firm jaw, a proud nose, cheekbones that flattened at the front somehow became spectacular with a side view. And his lips… Even pursed in thought, it was easy to see how pillowy and inviting they were.
He couldn’t be an alien with razors for arms hiding inside another hot mechanical robot. Right?
“I’m not a scientist,” Nolan said.
“We all think that. I’ve been doing this for six years and most of the time when someone asks what I do, I say I’m in computers because…” My babbling froze at the mile-long stare he gave me. Shutting up now.
“My technical knowledge is nigh on non-existent. I came here, joined the lab for one purpose.” Nolan turned away from overseeing the living room with enough couch space to seat a football team.
What purpose? And what did he mean ‘no knowledge?’ He knew his stuff. Never wavered when I’d ask questions for the database build, or because I was curious and could listen to him read lab protocols for days with that voice.
Oh. Oh, fuck!
He was here for me.
For my… I opened my palm to stare at the pen and caught his eyes from the edge. They too gleamed as if I held a chest of gold.
“You’re a bounty hunter,” I exclaimed.
“That’s—”
A force burst through the kitchen. Stainless steel splintered into jagged shrapnel and whipped daggers through the air. I tumbled off my feet straight into the counter about to bash my skull in, when a hand grabbed me. The air whirled around us, blanketing away all sound as I watched through cotton-ears. Melted metal and plastic dripped from the walls and cupboards like colored rain. What could cause such an explosion?
The smoke from blasted-through sheetrock parted, and—oozing through the wreckage of Nolan’s ex-kitchen—came a pair of black tentacles.
CHAPTER SIX
“TRINI!”
The name reverberated around the broken room like a chant plucked from a foreign monk’s lips. I recognized the tone, but the significance meant nothing to me while I watched in horror as the ex-Dr. Andersonn walked across the splintered tile.
Tentacles black as pitch undulated from both the head and midsection, easily ten or more in total. Two main ones were used as legs while the arms looked almost human but emaciated. There was a body, though it was smaller than a third grader’s and flat in undulating sections. It looked like the creature kept shifting air around as if its body was a sack that supported the worst part.
Oh, the tentacles were disturbing, and the arms with knife-like fingers drove dread through me. But the head plunged a metaphorical dagger straight into my heart. The mouth elongated from the head like that of a crocodile. There no lips to hide away the single harsh beak hooked so it could crack open bones of a human.
Embedded atop the massive, razor-sharp beak were two eyes. Red as blood, they blazed around the mess it made, hunting for prey that couldn’t escape. Hunting for me.
Their sweep paused and I watched as the irises shuttered inward like a camera. Black welled up amongst the blood in a single small pinprick as the Kirkan turned to me. “Here you are,” it spoke not through the beak but a voice in English blurting from a belt strapped to the thin, bladder-like body.
“Trini, quick!” A hand grabbed mine and yanked so hard my legs gave out. But it didn’t matter, I was already flying across the glass-strewn floor just as the Kirkan raised its cursed ray gun. The counter imploded, shredding granite into the air like stone confetti.
Nolan kept tossing me, shoving me past himself and toward the grand piano. I hooked a hand around one of the legs to stop my momentum just as the man rose to stare down the creature that exploded his home.
“How did you find me?” Nolan asked. He didn’t shake, not even a little, and calmly walked closer to the threatening alien.
“Yaxha, you’re half as clever as you think you are,” the Kirkan said and the tinny robot laughed from the belt. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
That dead sound simulating joy shivered down my spine. But Nolan didn’t blink even as the Kirkan aimed the gun directly at him. “You can’t heal a direct blast at this distance. Not without scooping your body into a bucket, anyway. Where is it?”
“What makes you think you have any right to claiming it?” Nolan said staring deeper into the blood-red eyes.
“Simple, I have a gun and you have…whatever those things are on your lower tentacles.”
Nolan chuckled in
that same emotionless robotic tone. Was he mocking the Kirkan or…? I whipped my head to the door. It looked a thousand miles away, but if I slid under the piano bench I could—
“Ah! Don’t do anything foolish, Dr. Martinez,” the alien threatened. It may be a monstrous horror from beyond the solar system trying to kill me, but at least it called me Doctor instead of Miss. Better than some of my colleagues.
Even in the face of the insane, I couldn’t escape my damn gallows humor.
“Give me the research, Yaxha, and no one needs to be hurt.”
Nolan drifted his gaze past the Kirkan’s shoulder to the hole ripped through the kitchen. Water guzzled from the broken pipes, spilling onto the floor and down the craggy mountain slopes. The monster didn’t turn but leaned closer as Nolan did the same. He hooked both hands under the bar countertop and said, “Are you certain about that, Kirkan?”
A spray of light burst from under the bar and struck straight through the Kirkan’s gut. It shrieked, the mass of tentacles rising to slap at the fire dancing across its flesh. But I didn’t have time to watch its demise as Nolan grabbed my arm and once again yanked.
Damn it! I wasn’t some piece of luggage to be carted around. Hooking my feet under me, I got to them. “Come on,” he shouted, already kicking open the front door.
Hadn’t it been locked and bolted? How did it just blow apart like that?
But my questions snapped away when I heard a scream of pure rage from behind us. It didn’t come from the robotic speaker. No, this shrieking eel crossed with a falcon tracking its prey emanated fully from that squid beak prepared to bite off my head.
“Trini,” Nolan shouted and I kicked into gear behind him.
He locked my hand safe in his. The other carried whatever ray gun he stored under his breakfast counter. Was that an option at Ikea now, deadly Swedish fixtures? Focus on living. Be a smartass later.
“Wait, the car,” I called as Nolan dragged us off the gravel road and onto the craggy rocks.
“It’ll be sabotaged. Amazing the Kirkan didn’t do it before the theft attempt, but their kind tends to react, shoot, then think.”
So far I got that Kirkan equaled stupid brutes of the galactic world and Nolan was… He couldn’t be human, not with how knowledgable he was. Unless he was taken as a child. Abducted by a kidnapping alien species that took a liking to him, taught him to be a bounty hunter. And here he was, back on his planet of birth, trying to…
Oh my God, Trini. Not the time!
We skidded through half-frozen mud, sharp grass slicing up my bare legs and stinging into my feet. Why didn’t I wear sneakers tonight? And not a fucking dress! Splashing through a puddle crusted over in March ice, I cried at the spike of pain and Nolan spun back to me.
His palm almost clamped over my mouth, and panic froze me. Not from the alien chasing us and blowing up houses, but the abject terror of another hand around my throat. The fear must have been palpable as Nolan stopped an inch before making contact and stared in shock at his palm. Slowly, he lowered it and shook his head as if he wanted to apologize for an instinct.
This was all my fault. If I hadn’t started working on this stupid theory, if I didn’t brag about my progress online. If I’d stopped to think for two-seconds that someone like Shiro Andersonn wouldn’t want to date me, none of this would have happened.
“What do we do?”
“Keep running for now. I hit one of the Kirkan’s leg supports so it’ll be a few hours before it can give chase,” Nolan said.
“And after?” It was obvious it could track us, or track him at least. But if it found me on this planet of eight billion people once to try and take the research, it’d probably find me again.
I didn’t realize I was chattering my teeth loud enough to startle the birds until Nolan glanced his palm to my cheek. My panic tooth-knocking paused, but I couldn’t completely swallow the terror as I stared at him.
Thankfully, I was met with only compassion in his stars. “Trini, I swear, I will do everything I can to get you somewhere safe.”
I’d worked with him for over six months. We’d attended the same work parties, traded inside jokes about our research. He even met my brother. But that moment was the first time I felt as if I knew Nolan Smith. And the truth was, I didn’t know a God damn thing about him.
All he’d wanted was to get close to me to do the same as the Kirkan. But what would I care if he took my research to some intergalactic library? It meant nothing to my life on Earth. Instead of damning me, maybe my research could save me. “Here,” I said, placing the pen drive in his hand. “You should take this, all my notes and everything that could help you buy a star system.”
His brow clouded as he stared down at the gift. “You know this was your only bargaining chip against the Kirkan?”
I shook my head at the bitterness seeping down my throat. “Either you kill me now because you have what you wanted. Or the tentacle monster does later because we can’t run forever. Or…you both get off this planet and leave me alone. Regardless, right now I have to put my trust in you or I’m dead.”
Nolan weighed the pen drive in his hand as if it became solid gold. His fingers didn’t cinch around it in greed, but he kept staring as if he wanted to return it. “You are…an amazing surprise to find,” he said while pocketing away my years of work.
He must have meant the research, or the fact he’d never once had a bounty just give up without a fight. Gulping, I turned away from his inquisitive gaze to find the moon cresting amongst the stripped trees. It was a beautiful night between the stars. Shame it could also be my last.
“Trini,” Nolan whispered. I closed my eyes and clenched my toes into the frozen grass. “Come on,” he said. I opened them to find his hand waiting for me instead of the barrel of a gun.
With a wry smile, I took it, and we plunged deeper into the mountain terrain together.
I am not and will never be an outside girl. My sister, the eldest and leader of our trilogy, could build a tent from fallen tree branches with cute squirrels as assistants. Our brother, the proverbial challenging middle child, would vanish into the woods and come back as the newest leader of a cult of tree worshippers.
Then there was me.
“What are you doing?” Nolan shouted as if I hadn’t been lagging behind with every footstep. It was impossible to spot the jabbing twigs and pointy rocks in the dark. Even if it was bright noon, there was no chance I could avoid them all. Each plant of my foot brought nothing but more pain until it felt like I was treading on raw hamburger. Thanks to the cold, however, I couldn’t feel much beyond the occasional jab and poke.
How in the hell did he keep going without pause?
Did they do alien experiments on him as a kid that took away all sense of pain? It’d explain how he survived his shoulder being blown off.
“I can’t,” I began when I took a step too far forward and completely missed the landing. “Oh, shit!” escaped from my lungs as I felt myself tumbling ass over end down the slippery rocks and straight into a hiding gorge.
Hands grabbed my shoulders and, before I could whisper a prayer to guard my soul, my back slammed against the rocky cliff. Nolan strained across the gap, his toes clinging to the mossy ground. I felt my chest trying to heave and my stomach throbbing at how hard he held me safe.
“Careful, the ground here is…” he admonished as if I was traipsing around in the woods chasing butterflies.
I didn’t move, well aware of the lack of continuous ground below my feet. Which left me helplessly pinned by the strange man who kept staring. “It must not be easy to see,” Nolan walked back his cutting words. “Here, I can help you…” The hands that’d been roughly holding me softened to glide down around my waist. A sigh escaped from my lips as his palms swept across the small of my back and his thumb found its way into the crevice above my hips.
Before I could ruminate upon how this was not the proper touch for coworkers, Nolan lifted me. A foolish giggle broke and I fel
t open air pass across my dangling toes. On instinct, I grabbed his shoulders to steady myself. He began to lower me to the ground and straight into his full embrace.
A great blast of light burst through the trees.
“Fuck, I thought we had more time.” Nolan cursed. “That one’s resilient. Trini, I’m going to distract it. Do you think you can get to the road on your own?”
“And leave you to fight it off yourself?” I cried as if I could add anything in an alien battle royal.
Nolan chuckled, no doubt thinking the same. “I’m not without my wiles. Keep heading south, right through this line of trees. You’ll come upon the road. Meanwhile, I’ll lead the Kirkan back around to the house to give you time. Understand?”
This was when he would ditch me from his extraterrestrial life. Beam up into his spaceship and jettison to the alien conference. But I’d also be alive and without extraterrestrial problems. Nodding, I gripped onto a low hanging branch and pulled myself into the forest. Nolan wasted no time in darting back the way we came while I continued down the mountain. South. That was easy. Opposite of North. Grade schoolers knew that. Now if I could just remember how to tell which way was South in the dead of night while freezing cold and fairly certain I’d have to amputate a toe or two.
I ignored every puncture wound to my already battle-shredded feet and leaped through the forest. A loud gunshot broke through the night. I whipped my head around at the noise, my heart pounding in terror that someone must have found Nolan. But the Kirkan only had its ray gun. Was that Nolan and his distraction?
“Oh, shit!” There were no hands to save me as I ran straight off a sheer rock face and fell. My knee buckled under me, scraping the skin and hurling me back into the air. I bunched my head to my chest, taking the next blow to the nape of the neck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Somehow, my body twisted itself to the side so the rest of my descent continued like a hot dog rolling down a ramp. But that damn physical force that tempted and taunted me at every turn wasn’t easily satiated. I had so much momentum as I reached the end of the drop, I spun out into the air.
