Ascent

by Morgan Rice

  The alien seemed unbothered that below them, creature after creature was crying out in agony. It didn’t seem to matter that there were some being taken apart while still alive and others being put back together into new shapes, that there were benches there where aliens and animals and even some people lay while members of the Purest worked on them.

  Then again, Kevin himself wasn’t bothered the way he probably should have been. He had a feeling that the sight of a man having his skin replaced in patches with what looked like grafts from other species ought to make him feel sick and angry and filled with hate toward creatures that could do something like that, but instead, he just looked at it, noting the results.

  “Our flesh factories are complex places,” Purest Xan said. “The manipulations there are the oldest skills that we mastered, some even before we became the Hive. In each place we go, we seek the strongest DNA, the most useful traits. It is why we seek out planets that teem with life, rather than mining barren rocks.”

  They went closer to the flesh factory, and Kevin could see clear cages with animals taken from every corner of the Earth, already starting to be twisted by the things the Hive’s aliens were doing to them. A dolphin swam, a pair of horns curling from its head. A chimp seemed to have metal implants running through its skin.

  “What’s the point of all this?” Kevin asked. “What are you trying to achieve with it?”

  It looked like mindless cruelty, doing evil things for their own sake, or at least things that Kevin had always been taught were evil. Now, the distinction no longer seemed quite so clear cut.

  “Perfection,” Purest Xan said. “We seek perfection by exploring what every species has to give. We learn and we improve, so that we will be able to survive anything that afflicts us. We will not be driven to the brink of extinction again. We augment ourselves, crafting servants and living devices. Soon, you will be given the tools you need to serve the Hive.”

  “You’re going to transform me?” Kevin said. He didn’t feel fear. There was no part of him left now that could.

  “As little as necessary,” Purest Xan said. “We do not wish to risk harming that which makes you useful. Now, we should return. The Hive made a promise to you.”

  “A promise?” Kevin asked, as the golden disc turned back toward the spire it had come from.

  “Regarding the female human.”

  Chloe. Kevin had somehow completely forgotten about Chloe. His thoughts should have been filled with concern for her, worries about what might be happening to her while he was gone. Instead, he’d walked from the room like she didn’t even exist, and hadn’t even thought about her since. What was he doing? What was wrong with him?

  “There is nothing wrong with you, Kevin,” Purest Xan said, answering his thoughts in a way that reminded Kevin just how deep the connection to the Hive ran. “You have merely seen that some things are more important. Come.”

  They landed on the spire, and Purest Xan led the way from the disc down into it.

  “I feel…” Kevin began. “I feel as though I should hate you. As though I should want to fight you.”

  “And do you feel those things?” Purest Xan asked, although surely the alien must have known the answer to that right then.

  “No,” Kevin admitted.

  “Then all is well,” Purest Xan said simply. The alien led the way back down to the room where they had held Kevin.

  Chloe was still there, still pinned in place to the frame that held her by the weight of gravity.

  “Kevin, you came back,” she said as he entered the room, sounding relieved that he was there. “I’ve had to stay here waiting for them to come and torture me.”

  “Not torture you,” Kevin said. “I’ve seen what they do here, Chloe. They would experiment on you to understand you, then probably take you apart and rebuild you.”

  Chloe stared at him. “Why are you saying all that like it doesn’t matter?” she demanded. “What’s wrong with you, Kevin?”

  Kevin shook his head. Of course Chloe couldn’t understand. She wasn’t a part of the Hive.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Tell them to let me go then, and we’ll get out of here.”

  Once, not that long ago, Kevin would have done exactly that. He would have done anything for Chloe, and would have put himself in danger to protect her without a second thought. Now, it was hard for him to see why. Chloe wasn’t a part of the Hive, and it wasn’t as though he felt anything when he looked at her. Feeling things was for the weak.

  “It is your decision,” Purest Xan said. “Do you wish us to release her?”

  “Does the Hive have a purpose for her?” Kevin asked.

  Chloe frowned at him. “Kevin, what are you doing? Why are you talking to that thing like it’s your friend? We’re friends, remember?”

  Kevin could remember, but he couldn’t understand it. Why would he be friends with someone who wasn’t a part of the Hive?

  “It may be intriguing to experiment on her,” Purest Xan said. “There are facets to her thoughts that some of the Purest have expressed an interest in, or perhaps she can be hybridized with some other creature, or vivisected.”

  “Kevin,” Chloe called out. “You can’t let them do this. I know you’re in there somewhere. Fight this, Kevin! You have to fight back. You can’t let them do this!”

  “It is what is best for the Hive,” Kevin told her. He returned his attention to Purest Xan. “Do what you want with her. I don’t care about her.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Luna and the others hurried forward into the storm drains, trying to get away from the spot where they had left the bikes, and the sound of energy blasts striking the ground. Luna kept near Ignatius, because she wasn’t going to let someone who could help to end this out of her sight, and Cub, because… well, because. Bobby walked along in her wake, close enough that Luna could feel the brush of his fur.

  Luna and Bobby led the way because Luna was good at finding her way through spaces she hadn’t explored yet. Bear followed, and the storm drains were big enough that even the bikers’ leader didn’t have to hunch over to make it through. The rest of the bikers brought up the rear, some looking back, some keeping whatever weapons they had out in readiness for a fight. Luna wasn’t sure what those weapons would do against alien energy bursts, but she guessed that they needed all the help they could get. A few had flashlights, and it was quickly the only light they had in the concrete tunnels.

  “This way,” Luna said, hearing her voice echo through the storm drains. The network of them seemed to be as complicated as any cave system, and there were spots where she suspected it linked to the natural caves around Sedona, concrete giving way to the red rock that she recognized from the valley.

  “Why that way?” Cub asked.

  “Can’t you feel the breeze?” Luna said, holding up a hand so she could feel the air currents on either side of it. “I think there’s an exit somewhere up here.”

  “Okay, that makes sense,” Cub said. “What do you think, Dad?”

  Bear shrugged quietly, and that seemed to be enough of a signal for them all to keep going. They moved along in near silence, without even the drip of water since there didn’t seem to have been any rain recently. Then Luna heard another sound, echoing far too loudly in the concrete environment of the storm drain: Bobby growling at something behind them, followed by a shriek that seemed to have come from something that had never been human.

  “Something’s coming,” Luna said. “Run!”

  She led the way through the tunnels, taking turnings almost at random now. Almost, because wherever she saw red rock, she headed that way, guessing that the natural caves would be more confusing for whatever was following. Luna found a space where the caves curled around, creating a ledge that overlooked the main passage, and she pressed herself flat against the wall up there, looking down from between a couple of outcrops of rock.

  “Here,” she whispered, “hide, and kill the flashl
ights. Bobby, sit, be quiet.”

  The bikers did as she said, crouching down in whatever cover they could find and turning off their flashlights so that the cave was almost entirely dark. Luna heard the sound of things approaching with a steady clicking of something on the stone that didn’t sound like shoes. A faint, greenish glow started to suffuse the space they were in, and Luna caught glimpses of things moving below. She couldn’t see them well, but she could make out enough to suggest awful, spike-limbed things, moving jerkily and fast, scuttling through the space, navigating by a glow that seemed to come from within them.

  Luna held her breath, holding onto Bobby’s collar and not daring to make a sound as the creatures moved below her and the bikers. She froze in position, not wanting the least movement to betray her as the creatures lingered in the cavern space, as if sensing that something was wrong.

  A small animal, a rat or a hare, burst from cover nearby. Instantly, the creatures spun toward it. One lanced down a long, deadly limb, and the animal died, pierced through. The alien things moved on then, but it was another ten minutes before Luna finally dared to breathe a sigh of relief.

  “I think they’re gone,” she said. Bobby leapt down onto the floor of the cave.

  “Another alien type,” Ignatius said, sounding almost excited by the prospect. “How many are there, do you think?”

  “Too many,” Cub said. “Right, Dad?”

  Bear grunted an affirmation.

  They slipped back down into the complex of caves and storm drains, trying to work out the best way to go from there. Luna had always been pretty good at not losing her way when she went into some new space to explore, but even for her the caves were a challenge, especially when there might still be aliens around. She moved cautiously, picking her route with care and listening hard for any sign of the aliens that had been hunting for them.

  Luna couldn’t hear anything; it seemed as though they had swept through the tunnels as swiftly as the rainwater that they were designed to clear. Even so, she didn’t relax until they were almost all the way through, finding a junction near one of the exits with a view out onto the city limits beyond.

  “It’s getting dark,” Luna said, feeling surprised to find an evening sky out beyond the tunnels. “I didn’t think we were in there that long.”

  “Without seeing the sun, it can be easy to lose track of time,” Ignatius said.

  “And we don’t know how long we were changed into those things,” Cub said. “I felt as though I was just gone, you know? I mean, I tried to fight it for a while, but then it was like there was nothing left of me. I was just asleep.”

  “I guess,” Luna said. It hadn’t been like that for her. She’d still been there, trapped beneath the surface, looking out, but she’d felt the pieces of herself fading away. Maybe what Cub described was what happened when that process finished.

  “Maybe we should camp here until morning,” Cub suggested. “We don’t want to risk running into any of those things in the dark. What do you think, Dad?”

  They all looked over to Bear. The bikers there followed him, after all. He shrugged. Luna could see beads of sweat on his forehead.

  “Yeah, I guess,” he said.

  It seemed to be all he was willing to say right then, which meant that Luna and Cub had to decide what to do next. At least the bikers were willing to listen to what Cub said.

  “It will be dry here if it doesn’t rain too much.” Luna said. “We’ll have some shelter.”

  “We have some food with us,” Cub said. “I think we can risk a fire. We’ll need it once night falls and the temperature drops.” He turned to some of the bikers clustered there. “Go get firewood, and see what else you can find that will be useful. Don’t stray too far.”

  They set off, obeying his orders as quickly as they might have obeyed his father’s. Luna had to admit that she was a little impressed.

  She stepped outside, taking Bobby with her since she guessed that the dog wouldn’t like being cooped up inside for too long. She looked up at the sky and breathed in the cool evening air. Looking up like that, she might have been able to believe that there was nothing wrong with the world: the alien world ship was gone, and there was no sign of any of the smaller ships flitting about, looking for resources to take. That absence hurt, though, enough that Luna could feel tears beading at the corners of her eyes, falling silently only because she didn’t want the others to notice.

  At least one person did notice, though.

  “Hey, what is it?” Cub asked, reaching out to brush a tear away from her cheek with the pad of one thumb.

  “You know that I hate that you’ve seen me cry, right?” Luna said. “I’m tougher than that. I don’t break down all the time.”

  “Sometimes there are things worth crying about,” Cub said. “Like being made into an alien puppet, or the world changing completely, or your friends being taken up into an alien spaceship.”

  “An alien spaceship that isn’t even there anymore,” Luna corrected him. If the world ship had still been up there, she might have been able to imagine Kevin and even Chloe working hard to get back. Instead, it was gone, and them with it. It felt as final as anything that had happened to her parents, or her other friends. It felt as though all the hope for them had vanished the moment the ship had.

  “It will be okay,” Cub told her, putting his arms around her.

  Luna forced a smile. “You’re really not doing your tough biker image any good, going around hugging people.”

  She was glad he did, though, because right then it felt as though the rest of the world was falling apart. Luna had been so sure that this would end with her and Kevin and Chloe all standing together, and now it felt almost the same as if they had died. For all she knew, they might have, or worse, up on the world ship. Not knowing didn’t make it any better.

  “We should go back inside,” Cub said at last. “If you feel like you’re ready? If you’re okay?”

  Luna wasn’t sure she would ever truly be okay after this. Too much had happened in too short a space of time, and she seemed to be caught up in things far too deeply, given that she was only thirteen. She was ready to go back though. She wasn’t going to give up now.

  “I’m ready to hear what Ignatius has to say,” Luna said. “If there’s a way to help people, I want to know about it.”

  “Me too,” Cub said.

  They went back into the storm drain, where the bikers had managed to light a fire just far back enough from its mouth that it wouldn’t attract attention. The walls reflected the heat, spreading it out further and making the place surprisingly warm. Bear was already taking advantage of that warmth, curled up and snoring in one corner. Ignatius was sitting close to the fire, keeping warm.

  “You said that you would tell us your story once we were safe,” Luna said, moving to sit down near him. “I don’t know if there’s anywhere safe, but there aren’t actually monsters chasing us right now.”

  “So it’s time to talk,” Cub said. Luna saw Ignatius flinch at that.

  “There’s no need to be afraid of us,” Luna said.

  “You say that,” he replied. “I don’t think you would be so quick to do so if you knew about my past. Let’s just say that I did some… not very pleasant things before the aliens came.”

  “Let’s not just say it,” Cub said. “How about you tell us exactly what you used to do, so my dad and I can decide how much of a threat you are to the club.”

  “Cub…” Luna began.

  Cub shook his head, then looked around pointedly at the other people there in the storm drain, working to make the place into a temporary camp.

  “I have to think about everyone else here too, Luna,” he said, “and there’s something off about a guy who can bring people back from being controlled by the aliens, who then talks about all the bad things he used to do. So what was it, Ignatius?”

  “I… used to work for some people,” he said. “They had me custom making compounds for them in a�
� private lab.”

  “You worked for drug dealers,” Cub said, with a hard look. Luna looked across to Ignatius, feeling just as disgusted by the idea.

  “It wasn’t quite like that,” Ignatius said, putting his hands up. “Well… yes, I suppose it was like that. But it was entirely legal, probably, sort of. The people I worked for had me working on substances that would be technically legal, but would still have effects on the human body. I worked on stimulants, mood enhancers, performance enhancers, brain improving compounds…”

  “You sound almost proud of it,” Luna said. It was hard not to see Ignatius in a different light after what he’d just said. It was hard not to see him as something grubbier now, and a lot harder to trust.

  “You’re riding with bikers,” he shot back. “Besides, the kind of people I used to work for… they didn’t exactly take no for an answer.”

  “So how did you come up with a cure?” Luna demanded.

  “I was working on this… well, it doesn’t really matter what it was,” Ignatius said. “Suffice it to say that it didn’t work as planned. Yet, when all those around me were transforming, I was left unchanged. I realized that I had something that might be able to help the world!”

  “And you didn’t try to sell it to people?” Luna said. “You just went out and started helping people?”

  “I helped you, didn’t I?” he retorted. “There’s no need to be ungrateful. I’m not such an unpleasant person. I just…”

  He didn’t finish that sentence, because he was busy staring over Luna’s shoulder. Bobby was growling again and Luna looked round and saw Bear standing there, big and silent, moving jerkily. By the firelight, Luna could see the pure white of his pupils.

  “Dad…” Cub began, standing up, but Bear swatted him aside one-handed, sending him flying.

  Luna was in his path next, and she barely had enough time to stand up before Bear grabbed for her, meaty hands fastening onto her neck. Luna felt her throat close off as the big biker’s hands tightened around it, stopping all air from getting through to her lungs.