HUMANS MUST KNEEL: A POSSESSIVE ALIENS ROMANCE

by Renard, Loki

  “Just a couple hits of shank, or twerp, or, I guess, goober, if that’s all you’ve got.”

  “Sheeet girl, I’ll get you lit for free if you do me a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  She is not that innocent, and she’s asking that question with an arch tone I do not like. It sends fresh rage charging through my body immediately. This soft, pathetic human male is trying to make a move on my woman, and she is encouraging it.

  I can’t be angry at her. I wiped her mind. She doesn’t remember that I exist, let alone know that she belongs to me.

  “A favor on this dick, girl,” the dealer drawls, his two index fingers pointing toward his crotch. I would happily snap them both off and shove them up his foul human hole, but I am not allowed to do harm to any human in the simulation, no matter what they do to one another - and at times what they do to one another is nastier than anything a scythkin might think up. I am going to have to keep a very close eye on Seven so I can intervene to keep her safe.

  “I don’t think so,” she laughs, her amusement turning to derision. “I have a boyfriend.”

  “That right, now?”

  “Mhm. And he’d rip your head off for talking to me like that.”

  She’s right. I would. Does she remember me after all?

  It’s the dealer’s turn to laugh. “Rip my head off? Girl, you crazy. No guy is out here ripping heads off. Tell guys he’ll shoot them, or stab them.”

  She shrugs. “I didn’t say he wouldn’t do that too. But he likes the heads. As trophies.”

  “I like the way she thinks,” Tyank interjects. I had almost forgotten he was still here. With Seven on screen, my attention is captured entirely. In my mind and heart, there are no other living entities in the universe besides her. She is mine. The only thing that matters.

  “Do you have the stuff or not?”

  “You got cash?”

  “I got a twenty.”

  The deal is done without further banter. The dealer takes her twenty dollars. She takes a few grams of a potent psychedelic which has the main effect of destroying memory. Humans love drugs. They have always imbibed consciousness altering substances, be it fermented fruit, mushrooms, or burning plants. We do not provide any of those substances inside the simulation, but we do have drugs that humans can safely take without harming their bodies. They also possess the added effect of making people much more compliant and less likely to question their surroundings. When I questioned the Galactor peons we allowed to survive, I asked why the drugs weren’t available freely, but they said it helped for the humans to believe they were doing something illegal. It increased consumption across the board. Across the board being a phrase the Galactor people can’t stop using.

  Seven is standing on the street corner, a lonely little waif about to ingest a dose of drugs which will forever obliterate another piece of her mind.

  This is wrong.

  I was never meant to care.

  I was definitely never meant to yearn.

  I should have kept her, no matter what she saw. I should have wiped her just a little and put her back in my bed, but I let Vulcan’s derision and his reminder of my duties convince me that her place was among the humans. Watching her now, I’m not sure any human’s place is among other humans. This is a sordid little city, full of liars and cheats. My instinct is to clean it up, install order, demand that the chaotic criminality of their lives ceases. But this is how humans like to live, in small worlds rife with intrigue and injustice, and I know that if I am to interfere I will only set the process in motion all over again.

  “Krave…”

  “What?”

  I am not pleased with Vulcan either. At least he has the sense to call in rather than be physically in my presence.

  “Update on the Galactor situation.”

  “Are they coming here?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what are they doing? Having a picnic? Have we recalled the clutch for no reason?”

  “I wouldn’t say no reason. They’re heading toward the last coordinates the original Earth once occupied.”

  “What do you mean? Why would they do that? That’s scythkin infested territory. We’re all over that like broodkin on dead protein.”

  “I don’t know, but that’s where they’re going. Xen is leading the clutch out there.”

  I am torn. I want to follow the Galactor fleet, but I cannot leave this planet. I am first born. I am the ultimate authority. But there is nothing I can do. I cannot leave the simulation undefended.

  “Bring the clutch here. Galactor might be distracting us, and there are plenty of construction teams and other clutches at the old Earth site. We don’t need to send our entire clutch there.”

  “I was hoping to join the clutch at old Earth.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  He hates this place as much as I do. We were not made to wield these fine mechanisms of control, but humanity has been entrusted to us, and I have no intention of letting Vulcan leave his post again, not after the part he played in the conflict which saw Seven returned to the simulation, where she is now swaying gently back and forth on a street corner, having imbibed her recreational substances.

  She is wasting her life. But they all are. Nothing they do inside that pathetic little bubble matters. It has no effect on anything. They are not living true lives. They are simply existing in a fashion which might make them useful to others.

  “Tyank.”

  “Hm?”

  “What if we freed the humans?”

  He looks at me with red eyes and sharp brows and an expression which conveys utter confusion. “What do you mean, freed them?”

  “I mean, what if we conquer a planet. Just a small one, and let them loose on it.”

  “That was considered at the time of invasion,” he reminds me. “We decided that the likelihood of them simply all dying in the wild was too high. These humans don’t have any of the skills that would allow them to survive outside a curated environment.”

  “We could help them.”

  “Three of us, helping a hundred and forty thousand humans to survive, against every law and edict of the treaty we signed?” Tyank shakes his head.

  “Then how long does this last? This … babysitting. This torturous separation!” I clench my fist and bring it down on the board where all the buttons and dials are in an expression of frustrated anger. Several of them are crushed under the weight of my massive hand, and the board itself begins to smoke gently.

  “Breaking the instruments won’t change our situation,” he says. “… is that man touching Seven?”

  “What?”

  I look at the camera again. It is following Seven, and in the process, the male behind her, who certainly seems to be taking an interest in her stumbling form. So this is what I must endure, watching the woman I am irrevocably bonded with live a life beneath her, a dangerous, sordid existence filled with idiot human males who believe that stalking a female on the street is any way to initiate a mating bond.

  Seven

  I am feeling G O O E D.

  No.

  I am feeling G OO O O D

  No.

  I am feeling…

  What was I saying again?

  I am twerping hard right now. I took two twerps the second I got them. I still have two left, but I don’t think I’m going to need any more any time soon. I don’t know if I’m going to need time soon. Right now, I feel like I’m outside of time entirely. I’m waitless. And weightless. And pointless, which is all to think to myself… I feel amazing. Very good feel. Nice happy time. Mhm.

  My body is all soft and squishy, bouncing and rolling along the ground, my feet pattering along beneath me with every rolling step. How can I roll and walk? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. I am light and energy. I am a photon and a wave. I am…

  BBEEEEP!

  A car sounds its horn at me as I lurch into the road, dangerously close to becoming a Ford Cortina, o
r at least a smear on the side of one.

  “You should be more careful.”

  “You should fuck off,” I answer before turning around to find myself face to face with what has to be at least five foot nine of man clad in a long dark leather coat and wearing black sunglasses. He is mysterious. I like that.

  “Are you Seven?”

  “Yeah, I’m Seven.” He knows my name. I like that too.

  He puts his hand around my arm, gripping me with an intensity which makes me want to pull away, except I can’t because men have a grip strength you don’t realize they have until they use it on you.

  “Let me go!”

  “I need to talk to you,” he says in a conspiratorial hiss. “It’s about what happened to your roomie.”

  “I don’t have a roomie.”

  “But you did,” he whispers. “I bet her room is still there, filled with stuff that confuses you, but you don’t have the heart to throw away.”

  “You’re weirding me out, man.”

  “You should be weirded out,” he whispers in that hissing voice which carries much farther than just normal speaking would. “This… isn’t real.”

  Those three words jump out at me in bright pink letters and rotate in the air several times before blowing away on a gust of wind. They mean something to me. They have some kind of significance which makes me feel very, very sober all of a sudden.

  “Asshole!” I curse, hitting his chest. “You’re killing my buzz.”

  “Good,” he says. “Because you need to wake up, Seven. And you need to start rebelling.”

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “No,” he agrees. “You don’t. And remember that, next time a sign tells you to go to the street and get down on your knees.”

  “What are you even talking about.”

  He points to a billboard I didn’t even notice a minute ago. It is many buildings wide and several stories tall. It contains three words, big words, frightening words: HUMANS MUST KNEEL.

  “How did I not…”

  “We don’t see the messages,” he says. “We’re programmed not to. We’re given drugs on corners and we’re sent into a city that is no more real than a Saturday morning cartoon.”

  “Let me go,” I repeat as my consciousness sinks once more into my body and notices that he is still holding me hard enough to make my arm throb with pain.

  “I need you to understand,” he says. “You’re the closest one to an escapee.”

  “LET ME GO!”

  I scream the words at the top of my lungs. Pants starts barking. People look, but don’t stop, because people don’t like to get involved in altercations between men and women. Could turn nasty. He could have a knife. He could have a gun. He could have a gun-knife. Or a knife-gun. Anything is possible.

  “The lady told you to let her go.”

  A new voice enters the fray. A shadow falls over me. Someone very tall is right behind me. Someone tall and deep voiced, whose simple sentences are capable of making the earth beneath my feet move. I quiver with the ground as the man who was holding my arm lets it go and backs up several steps. He has an expression of fear on his face which I quite enjoy.

  When I turn around to see who has intervened, I discover a very tall police officer standing over us. He is broad shouldered and square jawed, and he is carrying a baton in his hands, a thick, stump-like shaft of glossy wood, tapping against the inside of his massive palm.

  “You…” the man who grabbed me tries to say something, but his throat is dry. Probably from all that hoarse whispering.

  “Move along, sir,” the policeman says. Pants is sitting down beside his shiny boot clad foot, panting happily as if he has known this man all his life.

  The man doesn’t move along. He runs along. He sprints away at high speed, and I wonder, to myself, in my haze of not quite sobriety, if the policeman shouldn’t maybe be arresting him or something like that.

  “Thanks for intervening, officer,” I say, doing my best to sound sober. Drugs are illegal. You can go to prison for drugs. I don’t intend to go to prison, after all, I have a dog to look after now.

  “You should be more careful,” he says, his voice rough and deep and doing things to my inside that feel far too intimate to be happening on a busy city street, but here we are. It is happening. I am being aroused by a policeman. I am giving in to the allure of patriarchy and authoritarianism. And uniform. And a big stick. And a stern stare. And big shoulders. And…

  “Young lady?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You need to be more aware of your surroundings. I suggest you go home immediately. I will provide escort.”

  “Oh. Uhm. Okay.”

  I don’t have the wherewithal to come up with a reason why he shouldn’t do that. I have to hope he doesn’t decide to search me. Those big hands on my body would be… well, they would… hmm.

  He grabs the back of my shirt and yanks me back. Yet again, I was about to go wandering into traffic. I don’t know why we allow big metal cars to be so close to soft, squishy humans. A kerb isn’t enough to protect us.

  “There should be railings,” I say. “Because of the cars.”

  “Or you could refrain from illegal substances and remain sober enough to walk down the street without getting into danger.”

  “I could,” I say. “But I’m kind of a rebel.”

  “Are you, now,” he says in that rumbly voice with a broad smile. He is an officer of the law, but I don’t think he’s going to arrest me. The look in his eye doesn’t say cell. It says sex. Pure. Hard. Sex.

  A hot flush runs through my body. This is madness. I have to get a grip on myself. He’s right, I am putting myself in danger in all kinds of ways, and I don’t know why. If I can’t look after myself, how am I going to survive? How am I going to make it through the day if I don’t make it through the day? My thoughts are addled and my body is hot in all the right ways - and all the wrong ones. I’m sweating kind of a lot. That’s a side-effect of the twerp. It dehydrates you. You and whatever else you are. That doesn’t make sense. I need a drink.

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “We will get you some water at your apartment.”

  “Oh we will, will we? Yes. We will. We will get me water. I need water.”

  We’re already back at my apartment. I don’t know how that happened so quickly. I’m pretty sure I was walking for ages to buy the twerp, and now I’m already home again. Wow. I’ve flown up the elevator. Oh. Now I’m in my apartment. And the officer is still with me. Nice.

  “Sit down,” he says. “I will get you water. You will drink it.”

  I feel as though he is speaking strangely, but it could be the twerp. I sit down, and I wait to see what the policeman is going to do. Usually they don’t come back to your house. Usually they take you back to their house, which is a jail, which has very unpleasant little rooms.

  “Why are you here?”

  He pushes a glass that is half-full of water across the bench to me.

  “Making sure you’re safe.”

  “Thats not usually a police thing. Police are more yelling, pointing, shouting, jailing.”

  “Protecting the public is my duty,” he says. “Now drink your water.”

  I take a sip. Water has the effect of diluting the twerp. Now that I’m drinking, it’s only a matter of minutes until I’m completely sober.

  He watches me with an intensity which I find unsettling and also, appealing.

  “Do I know you?” The question spills from my lips. There’s something familiar about this man, though I don’t know what. I feel like I know most of the people in this neighborhood, cops included. But this guy seems new. And also, old. It’s probably just the twerp playing tricks with my mind, which I can’t really complain about because that’s why I took it.

  “I’m a police officer,” he says.

  That does not answer the question even a little bit.

  “Do you have a name, police officer?”


  “K.. Kr…Kit… Karl,” he says.

  There’s something suspicious about that, but I can’t quite figure out what.

  Pants is sitting on the couch, looking pleased. Dogs are supposed to know who good people are, and who good people aren’t. Pants seems to think this officer is good, and right now that is going to have to be enough for me. I sip my water, and wonder how long the officer plans on staying.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “There’s plenty else,” he says. “You need to sober up, and we need to talk.”

  “Have I been a bad girl, officer?” I smirk into my water. The twerp is wearing off, but I’m still feeling pleasantly buzzed, sort of like I’m at a ninety degree angle to the rest of reality.

  “A very bad girl,” he says, lowering his voice with that animal intimacy which makes my body tingle from head to toe. I feel a pink hue rushing over me, concentrating in my crotch where the energy gathers so intensely it begins to turn purple and pulse with throbbing energy. I shift in my seat and realize that I am wet. Not just wet. Soaked. So much so I look down to check to see if I spilled the water on myself and didn’t notice. My pants are dry, on the outside anyway, but beneath the denim crotch of these wide legged pants lurks a goddamn lake of arousal.

  I look back up, and find myself meeting the officer’s eyes.

  “So… uhm. What did you want to talk to me about? Wait. What did you want to talk about to me? No. About what did you want to talk to me…” The question doesn’t sound right phrased any of those ways.

  “Have some more water,” he says. “I’m not going to start this discussion until you can talk.”

  “I can talk. I’m talking right now.”

  He raises a brow and my insides start rearranging themselves in a new formation. Oh god. Wow. This guy. He has… orange eyes? No. That must be the twitch. I thought it was wearing off, but I guess not. Still high.

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I know I am.”

  “Good. Then you’re sobering up. So we can talk about the way you wander the streets, giving money to strange men and taking whatever substances they dole out. You put yourself at risk, Seven. And you cannot do that.”