Death Becomes Her

by Michael Anderle

  Well, she couldn’t knock it too much as her secret pleasure was watching The Real Housewives of Orange County. Those women couldn’t seem to keep a relationship going without catfights and backstabbing, and Vickey? My god, that lady needed serious help.

  If she didn’t get her mind focused, she was never getting out of here. Wherever ‘here’ was.

  She walked down the hallway, took a left and then went into the door on the right.

  There was a little rectangle positioned a little low for humans on the right-hand side of the ‘door’. Pushing it, the door area slid to the side, into the wall allowing her entrance and then quietly, well mostly quietly, slid back closing off the hallway. In this room, there was a round table with a translucent white glass top, and a bed that looked sized for a kid, on the right side. This was going to be like sitting in an elementary school classroom. Large enough, but still a little cramped.

  She looked around a little further. The room was clean, but the starkly white walls seemed a little plain and made it feel like she was in some sort of hospital. Not her cup of tea.

  Sitting down, resting her elbows and cradling her chin in her hands, it was time to figure some stuff out.

  “Let’s start with the obvious, is it possible to extract you out of me? I don’t want to rip you apart, kill you dead, and stomp on your grave anymore. Well, truthfully, not too much and I believe in another couple of days you will be safe enough.”

  Yes and no. I believe it might be able to be accomplished, but not by any science this world has available. It can probably be accomplished in a few of the worlds of the Entarian race; they have some pretty amazing medical accomplishments.

  “So, yes, but I have to get a spaceship and fly how far away?”

  Well, billions of miles. I don’t remember exactly where they are and I’ve not tried to translate any of my knowledge of the galaxy to what your scientists have labeled those areas in space.

  “What was your purpose for coming here?”

  I was selected by my race as a vanguard. A scout, if you will, to locate other potentially sapient species and make modifications to your physical beings – so that you could become capable of joining the extra-galaxy war on our side.

  “What the hell? There are enough of you bozos out there you have to get into neighborhood fights? I thought scientists had very considered opinions that if a race had attained enough knowledge to travel the universe, it would have surpassed the need to be violent? What happened to that?”

  Your scientists are hopelessly naive, unfortunately. It doesn’t matter if a few generations seem pleasant enough. If the genetics for mayhem aren’t stricken from the DNA pool, it comes back around with a vengeance and then most of the race doesn’t have the constitution to fight back and the violent ones win. They take the whole race and make it part of their personal war machine. Those in the race who had any inclination towards violence are able to release those feelings and it just feeds on itself. Violence is a disease that a race must stamp out else they consume themselves and others.

  “What happened to your race? You’ve been gone so long is there anything left?”

  My race, Kurtherians, are, unfortunately, most likely still around as we are an offshoot of the baddest, meanest, most violent race out there. We had over twenty-two generations without the violence gene showing itself. This allowed us plenty of time to become masters of science and technology. Aware of more than the normal dimensions and able to send out scouts to distant galaxies ourselves.

  Thinking ourselves wise and feeling like we could shepherd other beings into our own enlightenment, we sought to find additional subjects to help. When realizing it was possible to help other races, the political body we formed to help these races move up to a higher level we called shepherds.

  Unfortunately, the some shepherds were in fact imposing design specifications on growth of the subjected species or manipulating the species DNA to create new beings in their own image of perfection. We realized violence is not always physically obvious, but its intent is.

  There were twelve shepherd groups, I guess you would call them clans. They started bickering amongst themselves. At first, it was over somewhat harmless philosophical differences of opinion, but then after a handful of generations these disagreements got out of hand. Seven of the twelve broke off and formed an opposing group and worked to bring their races to maturity and to use them to overcome the five remaining. One clan, mine, believed that this internecine war was inimical to the future. We secretly agreed to leave a shell of a group to struggle with the five as a front, hiding that a lot of us left, looking for a way to overcome the destruction of the seven. We weren’t prepared for strife, and frankly we probably aren’t too prepared for strife now as it isn’t in us to be violent. We found, and removed, the genes in our DNA so we weren’t able to return violence for violence. Of the group that left, there are two different strategies. One focused on extracting our essence to the ethereal. The feeling is that if we are able to move to that plane, we can’t be attacked through the physical realm here. The other was to locate a sapient species far enough away from our location in the universe. One whose evolution we could benefit so they could help themselves and us in a fight against the seven.

  There were thirty-four scout ships created. None of us shared which direction we were to go looking. That way, if any of our clan left behind were questioned no one would know the answer. Each ship had enough stores and each pilot had enough knowledge and manipulation of the ether to support their own continued existence so long as the ship was capable of travel.

  On my third jump through a solar system, I arrived too close to a wormhole and immediately and randomly hit the jump button. Normally, it takes what you would call a few hours to line up the path where I would want to jump to know my destination. However, the gravity from the wormhole was causing my craft to tumble and I just hit the button before it broke apart. I came out close to what you call Venus on a trajectory that would take me by this planet. The computational capability of my craft recognized a life-giving world. I needed to check on the structural integrity of my craft so I set course to land here.

  I never realized that I had problems until I was too far down in your gravity and it became obvious I had to land or suffer a catastrophic malfunction in the structure of this craft.

  Your planet’s gravity is substantially higher than I was accustomed to feeling. It affected my piloting ability and with the issues I was already having with my craft the landing was hard enough I broke a couple of required pieces of equipment to get it back off of the ground. Your technology, at the time, was not sufficient to make any required pieces. I could not leave my craft and had my one chance to ingratiate myself with a sapient member of your race, but I failed to take into account his reactions. Apparently, I had too much hubris in my own makeup and I’ve now had a thousand of your years to consider my failure.

  “You told me yourself that you didn’t have a name, but a long string of numbers. Why was that?”

  No, I said my nomenclature was a meaningless string of digits. The true answer is that we refer to ourselves as an answer to a mathematical formula. We see perfection in math, and often will research math for personal reasons and strive to solve one formula. Since we tend to get fixated on that formula, others tend to call us by a string of digits that approximate a meaning for the formula.

  “Well, while fascinating I’m sure to a math geek, I can’t call you ‘Number One’ or anything. Have you found a familiar name we use from listening to our television or radio signals that speaks to you?”

  I’m familiar with one of your mathematicians, Thales of Miletus, possibly your world’s first true mathematician and someone I can associate with.

  “Great, an early Greek mathematician? While I haven’t heard of him, that isn’t a ringing endorsement of my mathematics’ history knowledge. I’m not terribly fond of Thales or Miletus. So, I’ll call you Tom as a shortened version.”

  ‘To
m’? Isn’t that a short version of ‘Thomas’?

  “No, it is an acronym. Taking the first letter of the name you supplied, Thales of Miletus or T.O.M.”

  I understand, I can accept Tom as the shorted version.

  “OK, so Tom, I’m not trying to be a bitch here, but let’s talk about the Ontarian’s you mentioned before. Are they part of the seven or part of the five?”

  It is Entarians, and they aren’t in either group. The Entarians are their own race that we located in the same neighborhood as the war between the seven and the five. While it is possible they have not been found yet, a lot could have happened in a thousand years.

  “Figures. OK, I’ll have to shuffle the whole ‘extract you out of me’ for the foreseeable future. However, don’t think that I’m OK with what you’ve done here. I’m not just quietly going to accept you jumping aboard and I will be extremely bitchy about this. You, in fact, are going to become my number one target anytime my cycle comes each month.”

  Are you referencing what your female anatomy goes through during your ovulation cycle? If so, that won’t happen anymore. You won’t have a period or suffer from mood swings as I understand it.

  “Really? Un-fucking-believable! That alone just got you out of the dog house. You may sleep on the couch instead. This is looking up already.”

  Bethany Anne, how am I supposed to sleep on a ‘couch’ without you doing it? It is your body.

  “Figure of speech. It means that while you are still in trouble, it isn’t as bad as it was.”

  OK, I’ve heard the term but didn’t realize our relationship was such that it was relevant.

  “Yeah, well, you’re here, I’m stuck with you, you don’t pay rent, want to be carried around and I can’t get rid of you. That is pretty much the definition of a shitty boyfriend so I think it applies pretty fucking well.”

  Tom figured silence was the better part of valor on that subject. If he had to make the decision again, he would do it. However, he might be a bit more circumspect on how he would have woken her up.

  “Alright, Tom, is there anything on this craft we can use, and can it be fixed? I need to get back out into the world and find out what the hell is going on. Michael isn’t back, I don’t know where Carl is, my dad is probably a nut case right now and let’s not even discuss that Martin probably thinks I’ve kicked the bucket.”

  This craft is repairable. There are certain parts that need to be replaced or repaired, but I have the specifications for them in what you would call a computer. We will need to take that along if you want access to that information.

  “Sure I want access, it isn’t too big, is it? Does it require special connections or energy?” Bethany Anne stood up, that chair was too damn small so she paced in the compartment. Five steps forward, turn around at the door, five paces back to the wall and repeat.

  No special connections for energy as it predominately uses the host’s body heat as necessary or occasionally pulls on the etheric connection through the host if it is substantially taxed. As to how big it is? It is pretty tiny, well, mostly tiny.

  There seemed to be a definable silence to Bethany Anne, as if Tom had suddenly had insight into a situation and his mouth had come to a full stop. She stopped her pacing and thought back to what he had told her. “Tom, you didn’t really express how I carry the computer. You said no special connection but that it used the host’s body heat. What aren’t you telling me?” Bethany Anne could almost hear a mental sigh between her ears.

  The computer has to become a part of the host’s body to communicate, you will have to cut a small portion of skin behind your ear and place the device there. I will direct connections to be created between the computer and your mind and heal over the wound.

  “Are you telling me I’m going to directly connect to yet another voice in my head?” Bethany Anne’s voice started to attain a frosty tone Tom was realizing meant she was angry.

  Yes.

  Bethany Anne stood still for a few minutes trying to get her annoyance under control. She wanted to kick something, preferably Michael if he would just show up. The more she thought about it, the more she was beginning to think that Michael had taken a sabbatical. It was possible it was enemy action, but how unlikely was it that Michael found somebody here in his child's area that could truly affect him?

  A little self-doubt crept in. If Michael was dead, then she was both figuratively and literally out in the cold and if they were looking for Michael, they would probably ‘off’ her as well. She knew enough to realize that while all of his children were made by Michael, he brought her to the source, the original creator. Now she had the freaking creator living in her. What a cock-up.

  Then again, she knew everyone was either outright afraid of Michael, or had a great respect for his strength and ability to create untold mayhem.

  Well, that and his honor was touchy as hell.

  That meant that she wasn’t going to be able to just go out and discover what the hell happened by asking the first non-human she could find. There was no telling who was behind the attacks. Michael hadn’t known before he left and she knew Carl didn’t know. She tried racking her brain for the name of the government connection. Ah, Frank! Well, fat lot of good a name did for her when she couldn’t remember any other contact information.

  Besides, how exactly did she find a non-human? She needed more intel. She needed an edge.

  Dammit, she was going to need that computer.

  Fuck my life, she thought.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Brasov, Romania

  Nathan left the hotel and decided to walk to the local bar. While it wasn’t a great plan for finding Michael, he felt it was a great way to get a good beer. Or, considering the cold, something that warmed him a little better.

  He stayed on high alert the few blocks he walked over to the bar, a sign out front proclaiming the wide selection of ales available. Nothing triggered his senses.

  Coming through the door, a bell rang over his head. There were already about a dozen people enjoying a late afternoon beer in the pub. There were a couple of guys drinking together at the bar at the far end. A pretty bartender caught his eye as he came in and raised an eyebrow. He motioned that he was going to set up at the other end of the bar and she came down with a rag and wiped the area as he sat down. He noticed it didn’t look like it needed a wiping, which was nice.

  “What you want?” She had an honest expression, no hint of guile that he could see and remarkably blue eyes. Her voice had a beautiful lilt to it from her Romanian accent. Nathan could just sit for hours and have her read a tax book and he would be just fine.

  Having strategically set himself up to see who might be coming in the door from the mirror behind the bar, he asked for a local ale, not too dark, and to surprise him. A quick smile and she was off to pull his drink for him.

  Not even a minute later she returned, “Not too dark, yeah?” Her smile was too damn pleasant to have been behind the bar for too many years. Either that or he’d lucked in on a great pub.

  He nodded his thanks and asked for a menu. While he could speak Romanian, it wasn’t something generally known and he preferred to keep it that way. He pointed to a picture of a bean paste with smoked meat, known as Iahnie de fasole cu afumătură. Good thing he liked vegetables.

  He bent down to start eating when he caught the first scent of an UnknownWorlder since arriving here. It was some sort of Were creature and freakishly powerful. It wasn’t, for certain, in the building so it was probably on one or more of the clothes someone was wearing. He looked around using the mirror each time his head came up after taking a spoonful of the soup. There were a couple of guys together at a table near the back, with a couple of beers a piece between them. They seemed to have been here a little while and by their clothes, they had been out in the country.

  He caught the attention of the bartender and motioned he was going towards the restrooms in the back, she shook her head and kept cleaning the bottles behind
the bar.

  Standing up, he slowly walked towards the restroom. The other smell was stronger back here. He caught a little of their conversation and was able to understand enough that they had been fishing up in the mountains for the last few days. Passing them by, he confirmed the smell as on their clothes.

  The Were, whatever it was, must have checked them out in their territory while they were asleep and decided they weren’t a threat.

  Coming back out of the restroom, having washed his hands twice, he picked up a little more about them discussing tracks near their camp, probably a huge brown bear.

  Well, that would be about right, Nathan thought. While he didn’t know any werebears himself, he knew there were a couple up near Canada who would interact with the American Council.