by Sara King
“You are a slave to honor,” Rat said, stepping forward and poking him again. “My slave.”
He frowned. “Yes, and?”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but I own you.” She rammed her finger home again. “I served a Dhasha for the last twenty turns. That’s what ka-par means. You submitted completely. You’re mine.”
Sam was giving her a baffled look. “Is this about the bikini?”
Seeing absolutely no malice in his face, no attempts at deception, Rat just stared up at him in shock. He means it, she thought, stunned. By Beda’s balls, he’s meant it from the beginning…
Blinking up at him, Rat let her finger drop. The Tesla of the Congressional Era had completely surrendered. To her. She found she could only stare, humbled by that knowledge.
“I was wondering when you’d get it,” Sam said softly. His odd white-blue eyes were at once gentle and intense. He reached out, took the hand that she’d just driven into his breastbone, lifted it to his lips, and kissed her knuckles.
Rat’s mouth fell open. She was left standing there, staring up at him in utter speechlessness, until a sound from across the creekbed made them both turn. The girl on the ground had started to wake, and was staring at them in outright horror.
“We’ll continue this later,” Sam said, giving her a small smile of promise and brushing his lips against the back of her hand once more. Then, dropping her fingers, he calmly turned to approach the experiments. The female experiment quickly scooted away from them with a startled, unintelligible cry when she saw him approaching. She held up a hand in warning.
“What are you doing?!” Rat cried, her hands spasming around her gun. “She turns things to stone, Sam!”
But Sam neither responded nor slowed. Instead, he tugged off his shirt and tossed it aside, then unlaced his boots and did the same with his pants. The girl, for her part, frowned and lowered her hand. She broke into a huge grin, however, when Sam dropped his underwear.
As Rat’s jaw fell open, Sam walked up to the girl bare-assed naked as if that were the most normal thing in the world. And the girl, in return, scooted over and began running her hands over Sam’s body in a way that almost seemed like she was blind.
“Uh…Sam?” Rat asked, watching the experiment caress Sam’s body, groping and tugging wherever she felt like.
Sam turned toward Rat slowly, obviously trying to keep from startling his new admirer. Out of the side of his mouth, he said, “Take off your clothes.”
Rat blinked at him. “What? No.” Her hands clenched on her gun.
“Rat,” Sam warned, “Believe me. You want to do this.”
She felt her face twist, watching the woman grope him. “No, I don’t.”
“You do,” Sam argued.
“No,” Rat said, watching the woman’s fingers dip into the exposed cleft between Sam’s cute buttocks. At the same time, with her other hand, she was putting Sam’s hair into her mouth. “I’m pretty sure I don’t.”
Still speaking sideways while smiling at the experiment, Sam said, “Tuesday. Do it.”
Rat rolled her eyes in disgust. He would use that. Muttering under her breath, she stripped down to the skin—she was spending more time sans clothes on Earth than she ever had in the Ground Force, Rat thought bitterly—left her clothes in a pile on the creekbed, and walked over to Sam with a pistol in a tight, bone-white grip.
To her amazement, the female experiment—a platinum blonde woman with vivid green eyes—started to beam up at her like a happy child. The woman had oddly pointed ears and eyes that were too big for her head, which made Rat wince, wondering which alien genetic that Humans had bred into them. She once again remembered Mekkval’s last request, and how, if she allowed these creatures to live and mix in the gene pool, the Human genome would never be the same.
I’m looking at an invasive species, Rat thought, peering into the woman’s over-large eyes. One that could destroy everything.
Then the experiment was scrabbling over the river rocks to run her hands over her body, paying special attention to her chest and head. The woman’s complete silence as she fondled Rat was disconcerting.
“Sam,” Rat said through her teeth, as the woman began to fiddle with a nipple, “please explain.”
Beside her, Sam was grinning like an idiot. “It said in the test documents that the experiments with the greatest potential were separated from the rest, their minds wiped, and left unclothed and ignorant, to be controlled solely by chip. They were never allowed to learn language or in any other way interact with their keepers on an emotional level. They were not allowed to develop beyond the mental state of toddlers.”
“That’s nice,” Rat said, as the pretty blonde released her breast, walked around her and started eying her back. “Why am I naked?”
“Keep your voice down,” Sam hissed, glancing worriedly at the male, who had just started to wake up, and whose single violet eye had startledly locked on Rat’s face. His other eye was missing in what looked like an unfortunate graze from plasma fire. The scarring covered much of the side of his face, stretching the pink skin taut and puckering his whole left cheek. Very slowly, he pushed himself away from the ground with his hands. Up close, the high-tech black Congie gloves covering his hands looked almost comical when he was wearing casual jeans and a T-shirt.
In a carefully neutral voice Sam went on, “The scientists mentioned keeping as much skin covered as possible, to keep the experiments from making the connection that they, too, were Human. I figured they would appreciate a good striptease.”
“They’re appreciating it a bit too much, Sam,” Rat growled, glaring at the woman who was now eating her hair.
“Inside voices,” Sam said quickly, nervously glancing at the auburn-haired man on the ground. He’d made no attempt to move forward and join his friend in fondling them.
Rat narrowed her eyes and she placed a warning hand on the chest of the woman who was now crowding her personal space to breathe in her ear. The woman didn’t take a hint, and her green eyes danced with happiness as she slobbered all over Rat’s short brown locks. Rat resisted the urge to shove the woman’s sunburned body away from her. “What the hell are we dealing with? Morons?”
“Children,” Sam said, his face beaming with obvious excitement as he watched them. “Great big children.” Clearing his throat, he said, “Rat, you just became Twelve-X. I am Twelve-Y.”
“Huh?” She peered at him.
“As far as I know, their experiments were generally grouped in batches of twenty. So I can be sure we’re not getting duplicates, we’re getting named something between U and Z. One of the last six letters of the alphabet.”
“Look, I know you’re nuts,” Rat said. The girl proceeded to stick her finger in Rat’s ear, and this time, Rat did push her away. “But I am not ‘Twelve-X’,” she said, glaring at the woman.
The woman’s mouth opened in pleasure and she said, “Twelve-B.”
Rat frowned. “No, I said I wasn’t—”
Sam grabbed her wrist, stepped in front of her, and thrust a finger to his chest. “Twelve-Y,” he said. He gestured at the purple-eyed, pointy-eared teenager on the ground that was still eying Rat suspiciously. “Twelve…?”
The green-eyed woman shook her head vigorously. “Thirteen-D.”
Both of Sam’s brows went up. “Whoa. They actually made a thirteen series.” He gave the man a respectful look. “They were still working on twelve when I hacked their computers. No wonder he’s got the creepy…eye. Bet they added some Efrit.” Rat blinked at that. Now that she was looking, she noticed what looked like a tiny speckling of greenish scales on the underside of the man’s jaw. Indeed, the man’s longish features looked very similar to those of the reclusive, scaly creatures from the sand dunes of Kordja…
…creatures that were known for avoiding Congress for over a thousand turns by ‘sensing’ them coming. And hunting in packs, without words.
“Sam,” Rat said slowly, “these peop
le are dangerous.”
“Isn’t it wonderful?!” Sam cried. He smiled and bobbed his head at the green-eyed woman, who grinned and nodded back. “I remember you,” Sam said, grinning. “You were just a baby when I saw your picture. Very good at what you do, aren’t you? They gave you a ten out of ten. That’s what they always gave me, when I deigned to take their tests.” The woman continued to smile and nod at him.
Rat was itching to put a plasma round right through the Efrit look-alike’s big purple eye. “Please tell me you have a plan for all this,” she said. “Because I get the idea that Efrit-boy, over there, wants to hurl me across the creek.”
“I do,” the young man said, still frowning at her.
Rat froze.
Sam, however, didn’t miss a beat. “She’s harmless. Just a grumpy little Congie curmudgeon. Who taught you to speak? Dr. Carter? Her psych-eval said she was a softie.”
The purple-eyed moron was still giving Rat a suspicious look. “Not Dr. Carter. Dr. Molotov. She was called Marie. Twelve-A killed her, right after he killed all the other sadistic shits running that place.”
Rat watched Sam stiffen a little. “Ah,” Sam said. “Okay.” His creepy electric-blue eyes slid towards Rat and he cleared his throat. “Is Twelve-A around here anywhere?”
“Twelve-A and everyone else in Containment escaped after Codgson went on his megalomaniac rampage with his Chosen and forgot he’d left them there,” Efrit-boy said. He cocked his head at Sam a little too casually. “How’d you know about this place? You know Codgson?”
“No,” Sam laughed. “I’m the criminal mastermind that hacked their computer systems so I could experiment on myself.” He tugged his wriggling white hair. “Blind, impotent, and unable to shave for the last thirty-two years.”
The man gave Sam a long look, then said, “I heard about you. Codgson killed about a dozen geneticists trying to get them to copy your experiment so he could run it on himself.”
“He should have just asked me,” Sam laughed. “I’d have given him the formula for free—misery loves company.”
“Maybe you still can,” the young man said. “He passed through with his army a couple days ago, looking for Twelve-A.”
He’s talking about the telepath. Rat felt her heart start to pound. “Which way did Twelve-A go?”
Immediately, Efrit-boy’s unnatural violet eye sharpened. “Why do you want to know?”
Rat returned his glare, not about to be brow-beaten by a pointy-eared, glove-wearing furg. “Because I want to ki—”
Sam quickly shoved her backwards again. “Because we want to help.”
For the first time, Efrit-boy’s single eye tore from Rat’s and leveled flatly on Sam. “It sounded to me like she was going to kill him. Twelve-Y.” The sarcasm in his voice was not lost on Rat.
“She’s a Congie,” Sam said, shrugging. “They get itchy trigger-fingers.”
Efrit-boy turned to face Rat directly and said, “They’re not the only ones.”
Rat stiffened, realizing the stupid furg was threatening her.
“Hey now,” Sam said. “Calm down, okay? Both of you. We can all be friends. My name’s really Slade. I figured you guys couldn’t talk, so I was trying to find a way to relate.”
“I don’t like military,” Efrit-boy said, to Rat.
“Well, that’s nice,” Rat retorted, “I don’t like dumbass scaly furgs who threaten me. I tend to shoot them.”
Efrit-boy scowled at Rat for a few more moments, then turned back to Sam and said, “Do you know a doctor? There’s something wrong with Twelve-B, but she can’t tell me what. I know she’s in pain. I’ve been trying to tell her she’s pregnant, but she has no idea what that means.”
At the last, Rat’s heart gave a startled hammer, Mekkval’s fears that the experiments would breed and take over the Human race once again coming to the forefront of her mind.
Sam’s mouth fell open and he again glanced at her anxiously. “So whose kid?” he asked Efrit-boy.
Efrit-boy’s face twisted in distaste. “Codgson’s right-hand-prick Chuckles. When Captain Fucktacular finally pulled his head out of his ass and stopped joyriding through bases collecting tanks and weaponry, he went back to the lab to grab his trophy experiments. But by then most of them were either dead or gone. A few of the experiments were still alive in stasis beds, but because they weren’t his precious Twelve-A, he threw a tantrum and gave them to his men to amuse themselves. Never mind the reason they were in the stasis beds was because they were stronger than that skinny, blue-eyed dipshit. So yeah, instead of admitting he was a moron that got distracted by something shiny while Twelve-A escaped, Codgson let Chuckles and Co. rape the girls and eviscerate the guys for fun. The girls that survived the first go-around got carted around like cattle—Codgson was talking about breeding a new race. Twelve-B’s the only one I managed to save, but she’s not doing too good. Chuckles had taken her out behind the camp to get one last fuck outta her before he murdered her—the guy had done it to at least three other girls, too, and Codgson didn’t care because Chuckles was his golden child.”
Rat felt her fist tightening on her weapon. “Who is this Codgson? I will kill him for you.”
Efrit-boy glanced at her, then at her gun, with a seeming new respect. “My name’s Mickey.”
Rat narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t ask for your name.”
“Mickey, we’ll try to help,” Sam interrupted, sounding startlingly genuine. “Believe me, Rat and I can take this guy. Where’d Codgson go?”
Efrit-boy hesitated. “You need to help Twelve-B first. She’s carrying that loser’s kid.” Then, giving Rat and Sam a distrustful look, he moved forward and took the woman by the chin and gently tilted her head back so they could both see a wicked scar running ear-to-ear across her throat. Twelve-B let him hold her there calmly, giggling.
Rat felt her breath catch upon seeing the old knife-wound. “How did she survive that?” she blurted.
Efrit-boy released Twelve-B’s head and gave Rat a flat look. “I killed Codgson’s footsoldier fuckwit and took his medical pack. Then I used up an entire case of nanos on her.”
Rat got cold tingles, realizing that she was very close to sharing the other soldier’s fate.
Sam put his body between them again. “If you’re talking about Colonel Codgson, of Earth, he has nothing to do with Rat,” Sam said softly. “Rat’s a Congie.” There was…warning…in his voice. And, in that startled moment, Rat realized that Sam was willing to fight for her. Against a genetic freak that could crush him with a thought.
Efrit-boy must’ve realized that, too, because he peered up at Sam, seemed to judge the more than a full dig of disparity between them, then lowered his gaze back to look at Rat around his shoulder. Then he seemed to deflate. “Twelve-B really needs some help,” he said, sounding defeated. “At first, I thought it was a complication from the knife wound, but I think there’s actually something wrong with her baby.”
Rat frowned. “I don’t know anything about birthing a—”
Again, Sam bowled over her and said, “I do, Mickey. And if I can’t figure it out, I’ll get books. There should be a library in the nearest town. How long ago did she get…pregnant?”
“Over a month ago,” the pointy-eared kid said.
“I’m going to feel her stomach, all right? See if I can get an idea of what’s going on?”
Efrit-boy nodded tensely, though Rat saw his hands fist until the leather stretched tight and creaked against his knuckles.
Gently sidling up to the girl, Sam touched her naked stomach. She squealed with glee and slapped her palm against his chest playfully. The big man flinched and paused, eyes on her petite hand. “Uhm. Thirteen-D, is there any way you can tell her that I’m going to press on her stomach and it’s probably going to hurt, and please don’t turn my arm into stone?”
“No,” Efrit-boy said, still watching him with distrust. “She can’t talk.”
Sam grimaced and looked down into Twelve-
B’s pretty green eyes. He smiled. “You wouldn’t hurt me, right, Twelve-B?”
She grinned back up at him and nodded.
Rat watched Sam take a deep breath and give her a nervous grin. Then he said, “Well, God hates a coward,” and started pressing at her abdomen.
At the girl’s first whimper, Sam quickly pulled away. He let out a breath he had been holding with a sigh. “Hokay. Yeah. That’s not good.” He swallowed hard. “Um, shit.” He rubbed a hand through his puffy white hair. “Okay, we need to get her back to wherever you guys came from. Was there a lab?”
Efrit-boy stiffened instantly. “We’re not going back there. That crazy fuck could be there, waiting for us.”
Sam cocked his head. “What crazy fuck?”
“Codgson!” Efrit-boy snapped. “I told you. He’s got an army of brainwashed mutant wanna-bes and he’s nearby somewhere.”
“I thought you said he went after Twelve-A,” Sam said.
Efrit-boy grimaced. “You don’t know Codgson. I humiliated him pretty bad. He could’ve decided to spend the next three years staking that place out, on the off-chance I’d come back. He’s fucking insane.”
“Well, if you know of a better place, I’m all ears,” Sam said. “I can’t operate on her out here in the dirt.”
Efrit-boy flinched. “Wait. Operate?”
“Well, I can’t tell for sure until I get to the proper equipment,” Sam said, “but I think she might be in the middle of an ectopic pregnancy, where her embryo implanted outside the uterine cavity. From the location of the pain, I’m guessing the right fallopian tube.”
Efrit-boy just stared at him.
Sam frowned. “There are two tubes inside a female body that run from the ovaries to deliver eggs to the uterus. They normally have anywhere between a one-in-forty and one-in-a-hundred chance that the fertilized egg will embed in them instead of the womb, and judging by the pain in her pelvis, I’d give it a pretty good chance that’s what we’re looking at. If so, the resulting embryo is going to need a manual abortion before it can rupture something and cause severe internal hemorrhaging. Eccysis is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in the developing world. Or was, before Judgement. So I’m guessing it’s going to be one of the biggest killers now that we’re back to shitting in buckets and brushing our teeth in a stream.”
