Taken Hostage

by Hutchins, Hollie

  “Thorvall was shaking his head and blinking furiously, “No, no, no…you don’t understand…”

  “Grab him. Let’s get to the airlock.”

  “No! Wait! Just listen to me!”

  Alvarez said, “Let’s just hear what he has to say.”

  He looked at her curiously for a moment. “Thank you.” Then to Erickson, “There are almost eight billion people on this planet. Have you any idea what happens to them if the planet suddenly freezes? They die!”

  “OK. And if it doesn’t freeze they become sex slaves in your filthy empire. And what happens when they lose their looks? They get sold as food to the Fnarglblorgs?”

  Thorvall gaped. “How did you know that?”

  “Lucky guess. Come on. Airlock!”

  “Wait! Jesus, man!”

  Erickson froze. “…Jesus?”

  “I…uh…”

  “Would that be the same Jesus? What happened, Thorvall? When he was done here he nipped over to Proxima B for a bit of Bible bashing?”

  “I…uh…um…”

  “I’ve had enough of this bullshit. Airlock.”

  “OK, I’ll take you to the GFART and explain everything as we go.”

  Alvarez snorted. “The GFART?”

  “Sure, the Gaseous Fundamental Alteration Realignment Transformer. Why?”

  “Nothing.”

  Erickson slapped her on the back of her head and shook his own. “Child.” But as he did it he was wondering where he had heard the word before.

  They untied Thorvall’s ankles and stepped out into the passage. It was empty. Thorvall turned left and said, “It’s this way.” Alvarez had him by the arm and was pointing a gun to his head. He began to talk.

  “It’s a pretty complicated thing to explain. It’s been going on a long time. You know, everything I told you is true, it’s just there is a lot more to it than that. I am what you would call a hybrid. Mind you, so are you, but I am just a superior hybrid to you. You can see that at a glance, right?”

  He smiled a smarmy smile at Alvarez, and to Erickson’s astonishment she smiled back.

  “I’m curious,” Erickson said, “to know just how much bullshit and lies you can generate in the space of a short walk, keep talking.”

  “I was born on Earth. Most of us were born on Earth. In fact, all of us were born on Earth.”

  “And how many is all?”

  “All? All told? Including the other ships?”

  “Yeah, all. In the usual meaning of the word, as in, you know, all…”

  “About two thousand people.”

  “Two thousand people? You took over a planet of seven and a half billion with two thousand people? And you are note even aliens?”

  He stopped and turned to face Erickson with a smug little smile. “I told you I am superior. It’s in here.”

  He touched the wall and it opened. He and Alvarez stepped through and it immediately closed again. Bernie swore and started feeling the wall. Erickson shook his head. He said, “Don’t bother, mate. It’s not real. The whole fucking thing is a hologram,” and Bernie kind of fell through the wall and vanished.

  Erickson grabbed Stella’s hand and said, “Come on. I have a hunch.”

  She said, “Me too. I wonder if it’s the same one.”

  “Probably.”

  They ran for the elevators.

  Thorvall turned to face Alvarez. He said, “I have a good feeling about this.”

  Alvarez was staring around her wildly. There were no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Everything was an amorphous gray, and Thorvall was very close and very intense. She knew Erickson would want her to shoot him. But she didn’t want to. First because if she did she would have no way beck, and second, well, she just didn’t want to.

  She said, “Where are we?”

  He smiled, “Somewhere very, very intimate…”

  Then something pricked her neck and everything went black.

  Twelve

  Alvarez was naked.

  She was standing, manacled and chained in the middle of the floor, with her arm stretched up suspended from the ceiling. Diffuse lighting from an unseen source cast a meager, yellow light. Beyond it, stygian shadows hung in impenetrable curtains of blackness. In the center of the limpid pool stood a man, naked. His muscular body glistened with sweat. His powerful chest rose and feel with his heavy breathing. His member stood proud and hard. He walked toward her until his bare skin touched hers, and his hard, unashamed rod brushed her bare thigh. He put his mouth to her ear and she felt his breath hot on her neck.

  “I feel, maybe, you also can make me feel the way she made me feel. I sense you like me. When I look into your eyes, I feel something...”

  Fear thrashed in her belly like a living thing. She felt naked and vulnerable. She said “Please unchain me…” but as she said it she felt a burning inside, and she knew it was desire. She wanted him to touch her.

  His mouth moved to her mouth. His lips brushed her lips, biting them gently, running his tongue over the fullness of their swell and curve. He pressed against her and she trembled. “Why are you resisting me? I know you hunger for me.”

  He held her slender waist in his big hands and bent to take her nipple in his mouth. She felt the warm moistness of his tongue and groaned. A warm flood of pleasure moistened her between her thighs and her muscles went soft. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Oh sweet Jesus…”

  Then he was forcing her legs apart with his own. She felt the corded, iron power of his muscles. She opened her eyes and saw his massive form towering over her. He pressed against her and she felt his rod rubbing her mound. His skin was damp with perspiration. He slipped his right hand behind her and gripped a fistful of her hair, dragging her head back and exposing her throat. She felt his hot body against hers as he leaned over and licked her, then inhaled deeply her smell.

  “I know you feel as I do. I can smell it in you. You are hot for me. You want me, you want me inside you, you want me to own you. I want you as you want me.”

  Her heart was pounding wildly against her ribs. Her mind was crazed with fear and lust. Her loins hungered for him, but she knew it would be the betrayal of her own. Thorvall bit savagely into her neck, dragging his tongue and raking his teeth across her throat. He slid his hand from her hair, over her full, generous breast, down across her belly to slip between her legs. His voice was a hoarse grunt in her ear, “Be mine, be my woman, give yourself to me…”

  He slid behind her, encircling her with his powerful, muscular arms. Panic thrashed inside her as she felt his iron-hard rod slip between her buttocks. His hands copped her breasts. His lips were on her ear, his breath was hot. “Do you want me to stop?”

  She heard herself moan, “No…please no…”

  He grunted and pushed, “Do you want me inside you?”

  “Yes…god forgive me…yes…”

  Slipping and sliding between her legs, he bit her shoulder and sucked hard on her neck. She surrendered to her hunger and, smiling, closed her eyes and cried out with pleasure.

  His fingers found her mouth. She sucked them and, moistened with her saliva, they searched for her nipples, circling them, wetly playing with them. They grew long and hard as he rubbed, in and out against her inside thighs.

  He moved around to her front again. She opened her legs to him and he positioned himself against her bush. Their eyes locked and they smiled. She looked savage. He took hold of her nipples and pinched, hard. She shuddered and groaned.

  “Let me go you son of a bitch and I’ll show you what pleasure and pain are.”

  “Yeah? What will you do?”

  “Come here and I’ll show you…”

  Huge and engorged, he gripped her ass and positioned her, then slid inside. She cried out, and as he came close she sank her teeth into his shoulder, and licked his neck up to his ear. Next thing he was pounding her, rattling her chains, smacking his hips against her ass, and she was screaming obscenities of pure joy.

  They came to
gether, both shouting, both screaming, until they silenced each other with long, deep, hungry kisses.

  Then she whispered in his ear, “Have you got a bed?”

  He smiled and grunted, “You want to see it?”

  “I am ready for round two, and I want to show you what I can do with my hands free…”

  He growled.

  “I am a traitor,” she thought, “But this can’t be wrong…”

  Erickson and Stella arrived at the docking bay. There was nobody there. The cube stood alone, silent and open.

  Stella stared up at Erickson and said, “Share, dude.”

  He pointed at it. “That, is the GFART.”

  She nodded. “OK. Why?”

  “Because, because basically what he described was a nano-particle programmer, and what he said they were going to do, stimulating estrogen and dopamine, for that you would need a nano-particle programmer. And it makes sense he was planning to use it, because he has just told us we are a damn sight more aggressive than he expected us to be. Also, I think Olaf said it was.”

  She danced her head around a bit. “OK, that kind of makes sense.

  “There is another reason.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When I got trapped in there, when they caught me. I had a look at the control panel. It has a big sign on it that says ‘GFART’.”

  “That’s quite persuasive. So what do we do?”

  “When we get inside, the lights will probably go out, but I have night vision goggles and a torch – that’s a flashlight to you. The control panel is all in English. So I say we go in and see if we can work out how…”

  “How it works.”

  He smiled at her, “Yeah. How it works.”

  They stepped inside and, as Erickson had expected, the door slid closed and the lights went out. His voice spoke out of the blackness. “It’s probably programmed to do that.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Here…”

  She giggled. “I can’t see where ‘here’ is, can I? You idiot!”

  He snorted a laugh. “Here, reach out – Woah! Sorry! Was that your…?”

  “She giggled again. “Yeah, don’t worry…oh, there you are…”

  They felt each other’s proximity and held on. They were silent for a moment. Then he said, “You know, the way you handle yourself, the way you dealt with Thorvall…”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “You’re pretty hot.”

  She squeezed him. “And I thought you hadn’t noticed. Well Mr., that whole British accent bad-ass SAS guy thing you have going on…”

  “Yeah…?”

  “That’s pretty hot too. And you know something else…? Mmmm…”

  He had silenced her with a kiss. It was a long, deep, slow one. Then he kissed her neck and her ear, and whispered, “Let’s not waste time. Life’s too short.”

  It was not, as you might expect from two people such as these, a brutal affair. It was not bestial. Because each, in their own way, craved tenderness and gentleness in love. He stripped and then removed all her clothes in the dark. Then he switched on the flashlight and stood it on its end, so that they were naked together in its diffuse light. She lay down, languid and luxurious, making a bed of their discarded clothes as he slowly kissed every inch of her body, with infinite tenderness, taking his time, lingering exquisitely on her nipples, running his tongue slowly down her belly to gently bite her hips. She smiled and writhed. The pleasure was deep and totally uninhibited. She stroked his hair as he buried his face between her thighs, taking bug, succulent mouthfuls of her, licking her with exquisite sensitivity.

  She groaned, and her excitement began to build. His tongue probed deep and moved from long, slow, moist licks to rapid flicks. Burning tingles welled like a flood through her loins. She pushed her mound up into his face. He cupped her ass in his hands and penetrated her with his tongue. He growled and hunched his shoulders as her excitement infected him. His tongue hardened and he flicked faster. She whimpered, and between whimpers tensed her body and held her breath, feeling the orgasm mount until she spasmed violently and a wild rush of pleasure wracked her body.

  She collapsed, gasping, and he rose over her. Her legs parted and she dilated, still pulsing, groaning with desire. She reached down and held him, hard as stone, and guided him. He slide inside her. He bent down, biting her nipples, sending shards of exquisite pain piercing into her. She arched her chest to him, rubbing her breasts with her own hands. She whispered, “Lick me…”

  He gripped her small waist in his powerful hands and ran his tongue from her chest to her neck and bit hard. She cried out. He withdrew and entered her again. She contracted on him and he groaned and did it again. Then he began a steady driving rhythm. She felt him growing bigger and harder as he pushed and withdrew, then pushed again, deeper, growing faster. The sting of friction of their moist, perspiring skin rubbing and slipping together caused an intoxicating tingle that was almost painful, but she wanted more. She cried out. He held her face and smothered her mouth with his, sucking her tongue, driving into her, feeling his hips pounding her buttocks. His face grew savage. His neck swelled. His speed grew to a frenzy and suddenly he was roaring like an animal. She was clawing at his back. They were grappling, clinging to each other. She wrapped her legs about him as wave after wave of orgasms shook their bodies.

  Then they lay in exquisite, moist, throbbing silence. He was still inside her, pulsing gently, and they kissed, long, deep, intimate kisses. Licking each other’s perspiration from their necks and shoulders. Inhaling the intoxicating smell of each other’s bodies. She whispered in his ear, “You are a fucking animal…”

  He kissed her.

  “Good. We can be animals together.” He kissed her again. “Now, you sexy little killing machine, I think this world of ours needs a god GFART…”

  And they laughed, tangled in each other’s perspiring limbs.

  Thirteen

  Thorvall lit a Camel with his battered, brass Zippo, inhaled deeply and blew smoke at the ceiling.

  “This gig is over,” he said.

  Alvarez took the cigarette from his fingers and took a drag. She said, “Erickson is like that, man. You know, he is like, ‘I’m gonna do this,’ and maaan… He won’t stop. He just keeps-on-going…”

  “It’s a shame. It was a sweet gig.” He was quiet for a bit, thinking, “You know? I was born in Oslo, but I was taken to Flarve when I was just six. I was just a poor, barefoot white boy in the backstreets of Flarvox. I couldn’t get a job, couldn’t get a house, couldn’t get nothing!” His voice turned sour. “Because I wasn’t green! You don’t get shit if you’re not green! But when I was fourteen I jumped a ship going to Ephnae, made myself useful, learned how to play the Green Man, you know…?”

  “I hear you.”

  “And here I am, governor of Earth. You know what I did? I got on board their Seeding and Expansion program and sold them…nothing!”

  “You did it, man…”

  She handed back the cigarette. He took it, “Thanks, Babe. It was a beautiful scam …” he wheezed a laugh and she laughed with him. “You know how big this ship is?”

  “Three miles…?”

  He shook his head, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “It’s an old Schzlürg transport ship” He was puce and helpless with laughter. Alvarez smiled but said, “Doesn’t mean a lot to me.”

  He waved his hand at her, tried several times and failed and finally said, “It’s a one hundred and fifty foot sphere…!”

  Alvarez gaped. “You shitting me? What about the others?”

  “There are no others!”

  “You held the whole goddamn planet to ransom with one, small ship?”

  He nodded, still helpless, wiped his eyes and took a rueful drag on his cigarette, then handed it back to Alvarez who was regarding him with unconcealed admiration.

  “It’s the GFART. It’s my own invention. It’s a nano-particle programmer, and it can generate the most reali
stic holograms you can imagine. Two thirds of my troops are holograms. But the best part,” he said, “I had those green Flarvoxian bastards paying me billions in Galactic Credits to set up the Earth operation, and I had Earth governments providing the troops to enslave themselves, by promising them wealth and power they already had! Flarve provided the money, Earth provided the troops, I provided a hologram and a dozen mercenaries like Olaf! Hahahaa! All holograms! And now I am now a very, very rich barefoot white boy.”

  Alvarez looked worried. “Still man, you sold people. That ain’t cool.”

  He looked at her like she was crazy. “You kidding? I saved their lives! You know how long this planet has left before it croaks? You know what happens when eight billion people have kids? You get sixteen billion people. You know what happens when sixteen billion people have kids? You get thirty-two billion people. You know what happens…”

  “I get the idea.”

  “The maximum this planet can sustain is ten billion and that would be an unhappy planet. And with your CO2 problem, you are on the highway to Hell, baby.”

  “So where did all those women go?”

  “To colonize other planets. That is what the Flarvoxians do. I wasn’t kidding about that.”

  “And they are green?”

  “Yeah, they are pretty reptilian.”

  “So what happens now?”

  She handed him the butt of the Camel and he crushed it out in a black ashtray. “I guess I’ll GFART the planet, call in an emergency, get the Flarvaxians to evacuate most of the population and the Earth will start again from scratch, like last time. They will be pretty pissed. It’s taken them fifteen thousand years to get you where you are, and they were looking forward to moving in. This is a rare and lovely planet.”

  “Last time?”

  “Yeah, when Atlas fucked up and the ice caps melted.”

  “I think Erickson probably already went ahead and GFARTed.” She sniggered like a school kid.

  Thorvall shook his head.

  “Nah, he won’t be able to. He doesn’t know where the GFART machine is, or how to work it. I’ll do it in a minute.”