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Busted.
“It’s professional curiosity, honestly,” I say. “I work for the people who provide funding for this kind of experiment. I was just trying to figure out what your brief might be, what hypothesis you’re trying to test. It’s been fascinating, but I need you to call your superiors now and have me removed from your cohort of test subjects. Clearly, I am not supposed to be here.”
“None of us are supposed to be here,” Liv says. “We-”
I cut her off with a frustrated huff. “I would have thought someone from science tier would be quicker on the uptake. You won’t convince me, so stop trying and start getting me out of here.”
“We’re not from science tier, Angie,” the blonde says.
My patience - worn thin before I ever met these three - snaps.
“You aren’t going to get away with this, you know? I’m not some bottom tier gutter trash you can abduct without consequences. I have a family. I have a job, responsibilities. People who will know that I’m missing and ask questions.”
Even as I say it, Baxter flashes before my eyes again - disheveled and furious, promising to make me pay. If anyone had questions, they’d ask him. And he would probably just smile winningly and tell them I’ve been transferred to a different office. No one would doubt him.
And my family - I stopped mattering to them when I failed my Screening.
The fear that’s been bubbling under the surface threatens to envelop me, closing off my airways like a fist around my throat.
“Maybe they did ask questions,” Liv says. “But you have to understand, Angie, any questions would have been asked nineteen years ago. Your job and responsibilities are gone. Your family… I don’t know what Mercenia told them. Probably that you died. They have a habit of saying that to get angry families off their backs.”
Any pretense at empathy is gone now, her patience already worn through by my lack of compliance. There’s a new sharp edge to her tone that only aggravates me even more.
“No, I don’t have to understand that,” I snap. “I haven’t been frozen for nineteen years. We don’t have that capability.”
“In the general workforce, no,” Brooks says, her voice still gentle, kind. “But military tier has had access to cryogenics for years.”
That’s actually a convincing lie. Military tier has their own research and development departments, fed by science tier. Top secret, need to know stuff. Even with my job, I still wouldn’t qualify as ‘need to know’. The fear gets a little louder, a little stronger.
“I’m not playing this game anymore,” I say, trying to sound firm and unshakeable, landing somewhere in the vicinity.
Impatience flashes in Liv’s eyes, but she takes a breath before turning to the blonde.
“Lorna.”
“Sure,” the blonde replies, walking off between the pods and out of sight.
Silence falls for a moment, and I wonder what Lorna has been sent to do. I get my answer when I hear heavy footsteps approaching.
I’m about to have my first ‘alien’ encounter.
Lorna reappears first, her arm extended behind her where she’s gripping a big hand. A big, green hand. I follow that hand back up, my eyes moving along a toned arm to a brown, handmade vest top stretched across a broad chest. When Liv said ‘not so little’, she wasn’t kidding. The guy has to be over six and a half feet tall. Lorna looks tiny next to him. I glance at Brooks. She’s obviously not the only military tier recruit they have for this little experiment.
I look back at the ‘alien’. The room is dark, the lighting overhead dim. There are no windows anywhere that I can see, so no natural light. It’s helping to sell the illusion. In the shadows cast by the soft glow from my pod, it’s hard to see anything properly. I look up and up to his face, meet with big brown eyes. His features are a little broader, a little flatter than typical, but they aren’t so far from human that they couldn’t be engineered with the right prosthetics and makeup. The poor lighting hidesany rough edges, blending the fake with the real so effectively, I can’t see any flaws to point out.
“Angie, this is Shemza,” Lorna says, patting his chest. There’s a proprietary air to the way she touches him, and I gather I’m supposed to believe this is her baby daddy. “Shemza, this is Angie.”
He nods his head in greeting, and my attention snags on the long hair that he’s tied back from his face. Must be a wig, because most people can’t grow their hair that long, and there’s no way he wasn’t sporting a military tier buzz cut like Brooks’ before he was picked for this job.
“Hello,” he says, his voice low, slightly growling, but still somehow soft. And he must have had some damn good vocal coaching, because his accent twists the word out of shape, like it’s not his first language. Excellent attention to detail.
“They’re called raskarrans,” Liv says. “They’re hunter-gatherers, nowhere near humanity’s technological level. But they’re kind and respectful. They took us in without hesitation and have looked after us as we’ve found our feet and our place within the tribe. They’ll do the same for you and all the other girls here.”
“And all I have to do to earn that is have sex with them?” I say, relocating some of my disdain.
Liv scowls, but catches herself, smoothing her expression out. Her tone when she speaks is one of strained patience, as though she’s trying to be kind but can’t quite find it in herself. “This isn’t Mercenia’s world here. Whatever ideas you have about how things work are going to be way off. You’ll earn your keep, sure, but how you decide to do that is up to you. Everyone has found a way to be valuable to the tribe, and sex has nothing to do with it.”
She takes a breath and continues, softer now. Earnest. “Your life is yours to make what you will of it here, Angie. Whateverconstraints, whatever rules Mercenia placed on you, they’re gone. They don’t apply. No one, within reason, is going to tell you what you can and can’t do. Who you are, who you want to be, is your choice.”
