Contaminated

by Amanda Milo

  CONTAMINATED

  A sci-fi fairytale retelling of Beauty and the Beast

  By Amanda Milo

  Copyright © 2019 Amanda Milo ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information and retrieval system without express written permission from the Author/Publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To everyone who purchases this book with their hard-earned money or lawfully rents a copy through Kindle Unlimited: Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support. ♥

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  EPILOGUE

  BONUS DELETED PAGE

  A Note to You:

  Cosmic Fairy Tales

  Books & Audiobooks by Amanda…

  About the Author

  ♥ The I’m Gonna Kick Myself Later List ♥

  Beta-reading heroes

  Dedication

  To R, for being my right and left hand and keeper and caretaker and foot massager. I owe you all the things. ♥

  CHAPTER 1

  My designation is ErreckMXL7-GeneStatus: CARRIER.

  That’s correct. Carrier.

  It could be worse—I could be an Affected. At least on the surface, this way, I’m a healthy specimen because no physical ailments manifest themselves.

  It’s merely my hidden set of genetics that pose the problem.

  My people, the Genneӝt, were a successful planet full of bustling metropolises with interplanetary trade routes and treaties. Then one day, it was as if we were struck with a mysterious curse. We looked drunken, felt drunken, because those affected couldn’t control their limbs properly. It was as if everyone was attempting to walk across the deck of a pitching ship… but they were on the ground, attempting a simple path on a perfectly flat surface.

  Because it was so widespread, it looked as if everyone was very suddenly terrifyingly ill, and nearby planets withdrew all contact with us. Our people were deported from other planets, some were killed and disposed of as if they were biohazardous. As a precaution against further rash action, our planet closed off all trade routes (which had dried up as pilots and planets feared to get near us or accept any supplies from our surface) and we entered into a self-quarantine until we could determine the cause of our mystery malaise.

  Some affected were so gravely ill, they died. Many were too physically affected by the malady to be mobile. The few left began running diagnostics, developing tests, and consulting our brightest minds for answers.

  We came to find that we had indeed been cursed—by genetics rather than magic, but it was just as mystifying and devastating. Genneӝt everywhere on the planet were displaying a mutation with a constellation of disorders that attack the brain and the spine. These disorders can manifest as little irritations, twitching muscles and stumbling in the early stages, and constant quaking and uncontrollable seizing as the individual's condition deteriorates.

  We named our unfortunate disease Lʊʊnjaɠ. The word in our old language literally translates to loss of full control of body.

  There is no cure.

  We found three modes of inheritance for Lʊʊnjaɠ: a Genneӝt could receive a dominant gene from one parent, a recessive gene from both parents, or a silent mutation where neither parent possesses the disorder.

  We discovered that three-fourths of our citizens were affected.

  At this rate, we’d go extinct if we didn’t take grievous action.

  Entire departments of genetics professionals were directed to begin researching ancestry and were placed in positions where they offered guidance to our youth in selecting safe potential matches. It seemed the wise thing to mandate that absolutely no Affecteds could be allowed to choose lifemates if they intended to reproduce. It was quickly made law that only the unaffected and carries paired to the unaffected could propagate.

  But people were frightened. People love tragedy. The moment the restriction was put into place, it was suddenly as if every unaffected person fell madly in love with someone struck by Lʊʊnjaɠ. It was madness.

  Today, there are very, very few unaffected, or Clears, as we call them. Very recently, our society has begun to see a shift, where our efforts to encourage Clear-to-Clear pairings has almost created a class system.

  A troubling consideration. And yet, Clear-to-Clear pairs are the most direct method to bringing our civilization back from the brink of our disease.

  My parents were Carriers who, through a fifty percent probability, carried down the dangerous half-mutation to me. As recessives, we carry only one unexpressed copy of this mutation and therefore lead completely normal lives. The latent gene that sits under my skin will forever remain dormant and unassuming and not be any consideration for me at all, provided I never aspire to have progeny of my own. In a scenario where I had such an aspiration, I would face the same quandary as my parents on who to match with, and the terror of watching the recessive inheritance lottery play out for my offspring.

  To those who can afford the medical intervention and have no moral quandary with the practice, genetic modification and genome editing change everything—but if we thought our people were stubbornly resistant to pairing recommendations, they are vociferously against genetic engineering.

  Thus, Affecteds are still being propagated. Nearly our entire population are Carriers. And while the latter group can enjoy a normal life, this is not true for the former.

  To be born Affected is to be doomed.

  ***

  As a former researcher tasked with eliminating our civilization’s genetic structural disorder, there was a fair bit of stress on my sector’s progress. And too few advances. I’ve since transferred to a much quieter department, where my focus is no longer on trying to create a cure, instead aiming to improve the quality of life for Affecteds.

  Simmi, my lab partner, came from the Ancestry Research, Testing, and Reporting Office, where he officiated pairings’ matches once they were deemed within the bounds of genetic safety.

  He despised his job.

  Or, in Simmi’s words: “Management was encroaching on my autonomy to a degree that quickly became quite unbearable.”

  Management is like this no matter what branch you work, of course. The true reason Simmi died inside at his former position was because there’s nothing worse than explaining to a set of poorly paired Genneӝt hopefuls that they will not receive official approval for their union because any resulting progeny will inherit the active mutation.

  Outright refusing Affected-to-Affected lovematches seems harsh, but there’s just no getting around it. Not for our generation, or the next, or the next.

  It will be a very, very long time before we eradicate this gene
tic curse.

  It would help immensely if unsanctioned pairs didn’t couple—against sanctions!—and procreate anyway.

  Their progeny suffer for their choice.

  In Simmi’s and my current line of work, we research new and improved methods for propagating a rare carnivorous plant, the Morsuflos. From the bloom, we develop an extract—a sort of serum, if you will—that treats the symptoms of Affecteds. It’s no cure, but some lesser-plagued individuals can live mostly normal lives. At least for a time.

  Simmi and I are seated in our U-shaped, recessed research lab where the inner half-circle is partitioned with glass panels, which allows us a perfect eye-level view of the ground. We count ourselves lucky to be in a branch of study that involves plant propagation. Rather than being trapped in a windowless office, we have a breathtaking vista—if we peer up above our subjects, we get a ten-panel view of sunshine and sky. It’s a welcome change from the greys and grey-er colors of our respective dormitories.

  Behind our research plots is mostly untouched forest, which offers several old, unkempt walking trails. Not many of us hike anymore as a pastime. I’m uncertain why this is. If you’re not an Affected, there’s no reason you can’t. At some point in our recent history though (at least in the research sector), the able-bodied have shifted away from relaxing pursuits. It’s almost as if we’ve all developed mild cases of hypochondria, and one foot is kept poised over the threshold—living the life of an Affected entirely in our minds.

  I’m pondering this, gazing out the viewer window in front of my station, under the premise of studying our largest Morsuflos plant specimen—but my musings have taken me far, far away from this office. Sometimes, I wish for… more.

  Every one of my most basic needs are met. It’s silly for me to yearn for anything not necessary.

  Yet I do.

  Sometimes I crave touch so badly, I hug myself with my own tail, just to feel the squeeze, to be able to pretend, even if for a somewhat unsatisfying moment, that I’m being touched by another person. A female who has as deep a connection with me as I have for her.

  It’s a foolish wish. I don’t have enough opportunities to interact with females, and I have even fewer opportunities to attract them. Most of my time is devoted to the study of killer plants and Simmi’s strange habits.

  (I would focus less on Simmi’s eccentricities if I had a female, I think. She’d simply have to tolerate the amount of time I work with the plants; that I can’t change.)

  Females want to spend time with their males, and understandably so. Females want a partner who can give them their full attention. Unless I change my field, that will never be me.

  Thus, here I sit, daydreaming.

  If plants were capable of taking offense, the Morsuflos wouldn’t mind that I’m ignoring it. It’s a hunter that thrives on the unwary. Although its blooms are astoundingly eye-catching with bright colors and interesting patterns, the rest of its features are dull and unremarkable.

  Or hidden.

  It has a powerful set of jaws that rest, tensed, just under the barest covering of soil.

  Waiting for a victim.

  It’s not a picky eater. It’s not uncommon for the Morsuflos to draw in prey of all kinds; it’s even snapped its jaws around unsuspecting Genneӝt hands in the past. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s captured and digested every native being on the planet at one time or another.

  Unbeknownst to me, today the Morsuflos is about to attract a nonnative meal.

  Movement draws my eye, and my jaw goes slack—because approaching cautiously is a creature unlike any I’ve ever seen.

  Today the Morsuflos bloom is drawing in an alien.

  CHAPTER 2

  There’s an inter-departmental moniker for Simmi and me: they (female colleagues who have visited our research sector; a rare phenomenon) call us the Toothsome Twosome, an embarrassing title neither of us have acknowledged. I’m still taken aback whenever I’m referenced alongside Simmi. I may match his tall frame, and have equally long limbs and as fine a tail, but I don’t possess near his number of dorsal tubes (large, hollow, tapered tubes that run down our spines in pairs. They’re nestled below our protuberances—which are larger yet, and inflate or deflate depending on our mood), or Simmi’s unbelievably long, thick pair of antennae.

  When I first met him, I envied him for his antennae pair.

  My pair of antennae are woefully small. I nearly fell prey to antennae extenders (and yes, even considered implants) but ultimately, I decided that I should have made such a decision when I first moved to this dorm hive. Because if I make an alteration now, everyone will be aware that I’ve made a cosmetic enhancement. Instead of being awed, this will cause everyone in my personal orbit to value them less, which will ultimately defeat the entire purpose of the alteration.

  Despite no such flaw in his outward appearance, Simmi has not yet achieved a matematch. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t attract potentials: it’s his appalling personality.

  Once, last solar, we were put on holovid with a researcher from another team, the acid yellow band around her upper right arm identifying her as a Clear. At the sight of Simmi or of the both of us, she’d flared her neurocranium crown-protuberances, an unmistakable sign of sexual interest, and asked for our Statuses.

  Stone-faced, Simmi had answered, “Carrier.”

  Stiltedly, I’d answered the same.

  Her smile had turned brittle instantly, and the chat ended quite shortly thereafter.

  Simmi hadn’t looked surprised at her rejection. The tight corners of his ever-scowling mouth said he was anticipating this reaction.

  Simmi’s parents had reproduced four times. Of their four attempts, one was Simmi, a Carrier—and the rest were Clear siblings. In our society, Clears are given every advantage, and in households with mixed-status children, the unfortunately-borns can experience a particularly difficult early existence where they constantly feel second-rate.

  I suspect this is why Simmi scowls, constantly.

  With the arrival of an alien outside our window, the sheer surprise has actually forced him to make a new expression.

  Simmi is gaping.

  His dark eyes are round, wide with shock, and his upper fangs are even showing. His hands are planted on his microscope, and he’s squeezing the eyepieces and head as if by his unconscious will alone he can turn the equipment into a periscope. “What the vecktorian is that?!”

  “Hells and a half if I know,” I breathe.

  We watch, stunned, as the bipedal creature cautiously approaches the Morsuflos flower. It’s gazing at it raptly. The creature’s almond-shaped eyes are luminous and wide and strangely lovely, arresting and attention-grabbing in the way exotic things are.

  I want to stop her—err, it, I mean. I shouldn’t ascribe it a gender without even knowing what it is. But the creature’s movements and strange form give me the impression that it’s feminine, as silly as the notion is.

  And as she moves for the Morsuflos, panic bubbles inside me. I don’t want her—it—to die.

  I’m half out of my seat, my knuckles poised to rap on the glass and startle her away, but she’s too fast. She reaches out for the bloom.

  This is it, I think, and wish we’d had more time to study her while she—it, curses to the vecktorianth power, it!—was alive. Where did this creature come from?

  But instead of attempting to eat the bloom, which will bring the flower’s springtrap jaws up from where they lie hidden, the creature peels back her hand’s skin—causing Simmi and I to rear back—and reaches for one of the nasty thorns along the Morsuflos’s stem, where she deliberately presses a slender articulated thumb.

  The Morsuflos bloom shivers.

  “What in the galaxy…” I breathe. I’ve been growing and studying the Morsuflos for nearly a quarter of my lifespan, and I’ve never seen it not snap. I’ve never seen it shiver. This is beyond peculiar.

  The alien reaches for her rounded back, where she tugs something free. I pe
er at her, trying to see what she has and where it came from, and Simmi cranes sideways, his hands still squeezing his microscope, likely attempting to do the same.

  We both jerk back when the alien raises her item aloft, and it glints with a metallic sheen.

  Seemingly from nowhere, she’s produced shears.

  With deft movements, she opens the shears and snips the Morsuflos’s head off.

  CHAPTER 3

  Shouts erupt from our side of the glass—Simmi and I are going mad, I realize dimly—and the alien creature’s eyes widen and she stares right at our viewer window as if she’s just now noticed us.

  The plant’s jaws tense, the dirt lifting slightly, showing where it’s hidden the rest of itself—

  ...But the jaws don’t snap closed and capture her. They fall completely still.

  Honeycombs on fire. Instead of being consumed by the Morsuflos, she’s killed it.

  Movements rapid now, her eyes darting to where we’re wildly pounding on the viewer partition, she uses a pair of long-handled pincers to deftly grasp and retrieve the Morsuflos bloom from where it tumbled down to the base of the plant—and somehow, she still doesn’t set off the deadly clench of its jaws.

  The alien turns and begins to run.

  “DON’T LET IT GET AWAY!” Simmi shouts, shoving at my shoulder.

  With our sterile booties slipping on the slick-surfaced flooring, we race for the door, attempting without success to jerk the handle upright before the system finishes accepting our protocol numbers and the Disengage Locks command is fully approved.

  Our haste causes the system to lock down, which forces the door panel to require our full pass permission data to be entered. Panicking, we struggle for calm and follow the vecking safety prompts.

  Then the door asks if we’d be willing to reboot. (After all, we’ve bypassed the recommended bi-microt system reboot for two timespans straight now.)

  What is normally a tired irritation becomes an antennae-bending serious inconvenience.