Kali stared at the raptor, dull-eyed, and flat-tailed. Her face paled and she swayed. “I forgot Howl,” she whispered brokenly. “How could I do that? We have to go back. Now.”
“He’s here,” Blue placated, holding out a hand to calm her. Hypatia gave him details of what had happened to Kali’s companion. “He’s been drugged because he was agitated, but when he wakes you can go to him.”
She relaxed. “Thank science.” Her gaze lifted. “No, thank you, Blue, you don’t now how much it means to me you brought him here to be safe.”
Their footsteps echoed in the hallway as they walked towards the main living area. Rather than be intrigued by her surroundings as he expected, Kali kept her head down, and stared at her feet.
Her brow furrowed deeply. “I need to find–”
“Kali.” Her head snapped back as Max pulled her into his arms for a bone-crushing hug. “I thought I’d never see you again.” She mumbled something unintelligible into his chest, clutching him to her. He eased his hold, so she could speak. He made a noise when she asked after her parents, and tucked her head under his chin, stroking her back tenderly. “Aw,” he croaked. “They got taken, Kal. I saw it. Those fuxs took Maddie too.”
Fresh tears pooled in Kali’s eyes as Max’s baby sister came to mind. “Your mother?”
He breathed raggedly and tightened his hold. “Gone. Those parasites got a hold of her the same time as Maddie. I couldn’t get to them in time.”
“Parasites?”
“Symbionts,” Blue clarified. “They turn the Humans into mindless Hosts under the direction of the Hive.”
Confused at the exchange Max held onto Kali’s shoulders. “How can you not know about the Symbionts?”
“The Novae had her,” Blue explained quietly.
“What,” Lara said flatly. She stood from her seat at the ComUni screens Blue installed to monitor the scrap yard and stalked towards them. “Why bring her here then? Who knows what they’ve done to her.”
Blue shook his head slowly.
“Don’t be foolish,” Lara drawled, the lazy way she said the words lessening the sting. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“Novae?” Kali repeated.
“The aliens,” Max explained. “You don’t know anything?”
“I woke up in my garden, you know the sand crystals we have decorating the back? In those, in a hole as if I’d been dropped there. I was groggy at first, but I knew something was seriously wrong when my house was trashed. Blue found me as the Alliance raided and got me out of there.” She paused. “Still not sure why the Alliance are the bad guys.”
“They’re not,” Max assured her. “These guys are Hybrids, and soldiers won’t be worried about good and bad aliens right now.”
“More of a shoot on sight policy,” affirmed Lara dryly.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Blue asked. “Before you woke?”
“Flashing lights. Beeping noises. Pointy needles.” Kali shuddered. “Them. It must be the Novae I saw. They have pale faces and fangs.” Her eyes pinged to the sharp teeth in Blue’s mouth then Lara’s.
Blue restrained the desire to press his lips closed. She knew what he was and he refused to be embarrassed. “Do you remember anything before that? Before your abduction?”
“I remember being on the back of your FloBi when you were taking me home.” She frowned. “Wait, no, you ordered me to get off the bike then it was lifted up in the air. Then a few hazy bits from the abduction and then I woke up on the ground in my garden.”
Whatever she said seemed to satisfy them, because they all relaxed and exhaled heavily.
Blue and Max clashed gazes, and Max held up his hands. “I know when I’m out of line. Sorry.”
Kali glanced between them. “What?”
“You were taken with me,” Blue explained. “Capturing you was an accident, I think, and they separated us. I was returned to the same place, but you weren’t. Max found me at your domicile. When I couldn’t tell him where you were he got angry.” Blue pointed to his split lip.
“I threw some pretty gruesome accusations his way.” Max shrugged sheepishly. “And a few punches, but what else was I supposed to think? He’s Hybrid.”
“Hybrid?” Kali put her hands to her head, on information overload. Her mind was fogged. There was a massive gap in her memory and thinking too hard was giving her a headache. “How long have I been gone?”
“Nearly four days,” Blue answered. “I was returned after three, but for some reason they kept you longer.”
“Something that makes me suspicious,” Lara said. “They simply returned a female perfect for breeding home days after taking her? That makes no sense.”
Kali held up a hand. “One thing at a time. We’re under attack?”
“Yes. An invasion by sentient beings of unimaginable power.” Lara’s fangs flashed angrily. “Stars, you’re slow.”
“You really are a bitch,” Max snapped. “I thought it was just me.”
Kali was too confused to feel any anger. She pushed her palm at Lara. “I’ll get to you in a minute.” Turning to Blue, she closed her eyes. “Explain, please.”
“The Alliance received a communication from an alien species who call themselves the Novae,” Blue said. “They were given an ultimatum; peacefully hand over females viable for breeding or the planet would be taken by force. Quadrant21 was Quarantined and the promise of the women of that area given. It was a stall tactic. The Alliance launched an attack on the two spaceships that landed planet side. It was a failure. Thousands like me were abducted and told our purpose. We’re Hybrids, genetically engineered soldiers placed in the wombs of women to be born and raised as earthlings.”
“You knew,” Kali gasped. “You knew this would happen.
Blue hesitated, before placing a hand on the nape of her neck in a way he hoped was calming. “Let me finish. Due to the aggressive reaction of Earth’s leaders, we were activated. Our purpose prior to invasion was to gather knowledge and to prepare. We never knew of each other’s existence, and we never knew what we were preparing for. We were returned, with a new mission. Instructions of where to be and what to do during the takeover were implanted during reconditioning.”
Kali’s eyes travelled over him and Lara. “Then what are you doing here, with us? Why did you help me?”
“Like me, Lara, and two others you have yet to meet resisted the conditioning. They found me because they too feel a connection to humanity and don’t wish to bow to our Creators.”
Kali was stunned. “How did you get here?” she asked Max.
“I found him at your domicile and was pissed when you weren’t with him,” he replied. “They freaked after an explosion and brought us here. I figured sticking with them was a good idea. I swear, Kal, I never knew the aliens had you. At first, I thought you and Blue were hiding together, but when I found out about the Hybrids, I knew you were in trouble. I couldn’t leave without trying to find you. I hid with Bella in my basement.”
He had taken an enormous risk to wait for her. Kali had seen what happened to her neighbours, and that Max risked his safety for her warmed her like nothing had since she’d woken. She clasped his hand. “From the sounds of things, I’ve had it easy compared to what you’ve been suffering. Thanks for looking for me.”
He smiled grimly. “Of course I looked for you.”
Kali rubbed her free hand over her face. She felt grimy. “What happens to the people the Host take?” She remembered what Blue said about breeders. “The males,” she added, not wanting to hear what she suspected was a horrible fate for a female.
“Most are paired with a Symbiont,” Blue replied. Others are taken alive to be slaves. “They’ll be safe as long as they don’t resist.”
A new purpose centred Kali. There was a niggle in her middle that she had to save someone, and she knew it must be her parents. They needed her. She may have little idea of what hell she’d woken to, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that her pa
rents would not stop fighting until they could hold her again.
Neither would she.
For the first time in hours, she felt like herself. “I have to find my parents.
“Please,” Lara scoffed. “What are you proposing? That we swagger into the slave encampment and pick them up?”
“If that is where they are, yes, but you don’t have to put yourself out. As soon as I figure out where this encampment is, and how to get my parents out safely, I’m gone.”
“I’ll go with you,” Max said, his eyes flashing. “I’ll take any shot at getting Madeleine back.”
Blue gripped Kali’s elbow. She could flinch all she liked, he’d had enough hearing her talk so blithely about putting herself in danger. “We can’t.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “Why?”
“We have to hide. It’s safe here for now, and that will allow us time to figure out what to do next. We’ve had a reprieve because of what we are, have been able to move around mostly unhindered, but soon the dust will settle. Already there are less soldiers fighting. The Alliance are losing, Kali.”
Lara snorted. “They lost in the first hour. The Creator is just mopping up.”
Blue caught Kali’s chin when she would have turned away. “Focus on survival.”
“I can’t do that without them.”
“It gets easier after you have a good cry,” a familiar voice said behind Max. Large blue eyes stared at Kali. A waterfall of blonde hair framed an oval face smudged with soot.
“Bella?”
“It’s good to see you.” She kind of smiled. “Max was worried.”
Max wrapped an arm around Christabella’s shoulders protectively and kissed the top of her head.
“See, there are people here you can turn to.” Blue addressed the whole group. “We need to live to fight another day.”
Distrust gathered like storm clouds on Kali’s face. “You’re just saying that because you’re thinking like one of these Hybrids.” She stepped closer to him. “Please?”
“He’s not just one of us,” Lara said. “He’s more alien than I am.”
Kali studied the differences between them carefully. Lara’s hair was not as white at the roots and held the faintest of yellow tinges. Her skin was tanner, and her eyes less vivid in contrast to her skin. Her eyebrows were blonde, as were her eyelashes. Blue’s colouring was more pronounced; he looked like a fallen angel.
“That makes sense,” she conceded after a loaded pause. “The Novae’s skin is colourless, isn’t it?” She remembered the pale faces above her as needles descended. “Sometimes their skin looks silvery with lots of colours at the back of their heads.”
“They are completely hairless,” a new voice said softly. A willowy male with up-tilted eyes joined the group from the corridor and bowed in greeting. White hair with black ends brushed his shoulders, and his eyes were an ordinary brown before morphing into a deep green as he watched her. “No follicles, you see. Their skin is a different cell composition.” He smiled then, the corners of his lips turning up in a friendly manner. “I’m Kenshin.”
Standing behind him was another Hybrid with acid blonde hair. The gentle expression on the giant’s face was at odds with the intimidating size of him. He waved. “Igor,” he rumbled by way of introduction.
Kali wasn’t sure how to react. Offering two quick smiles, she shuffled closer to Max. “If the aliens are so different why are they acting the way they are? So … gentle about everything.”
“Gentle?” Max blurted. “Kali, they’ve invaded our planet and used bio weaponry that crippled our civilization.”
“Aside from that.” She repressed a wave of irritation. Max could be so literal sometimes. “It’s not like the Novae came in guns blazing screaming demands. They seem extraordinarily matter-of-fact about it all. As if they have a right to be here. They don’t care we’re fighting back. They’re not angry. Doesn’t that alarm anybody but me?”
“Humans are not a threat to the Novae the LifeStream,” said Lara. “Females are incubators for Novae foetuses.” Her eyes flicked up and down Kali’s frame. “Valuable, but not dangerous. The males are a convenient work force.”
“Indeed.” Kenshin was thoughtful. “Forgive me, but Human reasoning is primitive. Linear and underdeveloped in comparison to a Hybrid, so that going beyond and comparing Human cognitive function to the Novae is like comparing ... hmm … mud with gold.”
“I like mud,” Christabella said in a small voice. “It grows things.”
Max and Kali grimaced.
That statement was more ironic than Christabella knew. Despite surviving the invasion, she hadn’t realised the gravity of her situation as a Human female. Kali had no desire to enlighten her.
“It is beneath our Creator to panic,” Igor added. “Humanity is backed into a corner.” Hulking shoulders shrugged. “To the Creator, demise of Human life is inevitable, yes?”
“Then what are we doing here,” Max demanded angrily. “If it’s so fuxing hopeless why bother hiding? We may as well strip naked and run out there for them impregnate us.”
Kenshin patted his shoulder. “You’re male. They cannot put a zygote in you, and the women are artificially inseminated. Are you comforted?”
Max dragged a hand over his face.
Christabella cringed, huddled deeper into the blanket around her dainty shoulders.
Lara looked like she was going to say something wicked, but her lips twisted in sympathy at Christabella’s ashen profile. She addressed her fellow Hybrids instead. “We’re not all Human.”
“They’ll not expect Hybrids to fight.” Relieved, Blue latched onto Lara’s comment to bring some optimism into the conversation. “It will confuse them.”
“We have the chance to catch them off-guard,” Lara mused. “They’ll have to spend time revising how to manage us.”
Igor crouched to scratch Natalya under her chin with both hands. “We will make it difficult for them by changing our tactics.”
“I was shown how they work,” Blue revealed. “As time passes I’m able to gain more access to what they put in my head. Everything they do is planned to the smallest detail. Their brainpower, the Reckoning, is such they can adapt in seconds if they have a learning source to hand. They determine their actions on possible scenarios.”
“The more unpredictable and random we act the safer we’ll be,” Lara concluded.
“That sounds reckless,” Max objected.
“Reckless isn’t random,” corrected Blue.
“Right,” Max said dryly. He didn’t care about the distinction. “How do we come up with a plan they won’t anticipate?”
“Your ideas wouldn’t work,” Kenshin reminded him. “Humans using human reasoning will not survive long, I’m sad to say. Our Creators were certain in their engineering of us. I doubt they factored Hybrid ability into their calculations. I would think it takes some time for the Reckoning to reach maximum effectiveness before they would be able to identify we are against them and puzzle through it?” Kenshin finished by turning to Blue, addressing his question to him.
“Those are my thoughts,” Blue agreed. “They can determine what our likely moves are on a broader scale, but that does not mean they can predict what we’ll do in the end, or how we’ll do it. There are limited options for what we could do as a resistant force to their plans for domination, and this will help them when they do Reckon, but any long-term predictions they prepare to encounter will be impossible.” He looked at each Hybrid in turn. “We’re made deterministic by probable options, but our emotions allow us to be behaviourally dynamic.”
“We have an advantage,” Igor summarized, sounding cheerful as he rubbed his purring FetchMe.
“I’m confused,” Christabella muttered, looking around the circle of faces for an ally who shared her mystification.
“Chaos,” Kali murmured.
Blue’s lip twitched, and his eyes twinkled with pride when he looked at her. She summed up what the Hybrids had bee
n trying to explain in a word. “Chaos is the theory, yes.”
Max’s face lit as he got it. “Yeah, like the Butterfly Effect,” he enthused. “Spontaneous changes to our plans to evade their scenario planning.”
“So we’re safe?” Christabella pushed. “Is that what you’re saying? Being scared all the time is exhausting.”
Blue shook his head slowly. “Sorry, but no. It’s not truly safe anywhere anymore, but we’re good for now.”
“Shouldn’t we be fighting with the Alliance?” Max asked. “They could use your help.” He motioned around them. “A secure location like this would be a useful outpost.”
“The Creator has the planet in his palm,” Lara said. “This bunker is secure because Blue has flooded the surface and the rooms down here in telekinetic barriers of energy. I’ve reinforced them with telepathic ones of my own.” She gritted her teeth when Max peered hard at the walls “You can’t see them, but they’re there. More minds would mean more power to shield. We can’t protect an army.”
“But you can help. Your abilities and knowledge would be invaluable to the Alliance.”
“I do not mean to be rude, but this conversation must wait.” Kenshin said. “There are more pressing matters.”
Kali blinked. “Why are you looking at me?”
“The Creator took you,” explained Igor. “The question we ask is why?”
“They abducted Blue and let him go,” Max reminded, drawing Kali closer to his side.
“Blue was designed to be the Hybrid Omicron,” Kenshin said. “The Creator took him to activate his latent abilities, and supply his orders, like the rest of us. This is logical. Kali is a Human.”
“Taking her was illogical,” rumbled Igor.
“Therefore dangerous,” Lara finished.
Blue stepped in front of Kali. “No.”
“We need to know,” Kenshin urged. “If there is something they did to her we must be prepared for it. To protect the collective.”
“I said no.” The snappish tone was nearly a shout. Kali shifted back, shocked by his outburst. Blue’s voice never rose above a pleasant murmur.
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