Another yank.
Only her shoulders, head, and arms remained in the light.
Kali didn’t want to be taken alone, but the guilt of dragging Blue with her gave what gripped her the opening it needed. A soft, persuasive cooing stroked her mind to make it feel less of an invasion.
It commanded her to let go. It told her to save Blue and herself that she had to let go.
Besieged by terror, her fingers snapped open. With a final violent yank, Kali was dragged screaming into the black.
13.
Blue could move, feel, and talk again. There was a faint ringing in his ears and a sour taste at the back of his throat.
He was back at the junkyard. His FloBi lay on its side, smashed into the ground next to him.
“Kali?” he wheezed, rolling onto his hands and knees. “Kali?” Blue staggered onto his feet and looked around. She wasn’t there. The back of his hands burned and he frowned when he saw angry-looking scratch marks crusting at the edges. Disorientated, he shook his head to clear the fog and scanned the area again.
Blue used his ComLink to connect with Hypatia to find out how she and Caesar faired in his absence. He’d expected only to be gone half the evening with Kali. His companion was mature and logical, but he didn’t like the idea of Caesar being home alone for so long. He found his FetchMe safe and whole. There was panic and fear when she returned Blue’s hail, suggesting he had been gone a long time. Worried, he asked after Caesar’s welfare, and the FetchMe tried to send him the customary information packet summarizing their time together, but Blue broke the connection.
The data was making him nauseous, his already overtaxed mind unable to stretch any further.
They were safe, and that was what was important. He just had to find Kali, and then he could go to them and take the time to figure things out.
Screams drifted over to him on the wind. He could hear men shouting and children crying. Blue jogged towards the disturbing sounds and an ominous orange glow. The closer he got to the noise and light, the wider his mouth hung. The inner domiciles of the quadrant were on fire, and whips of a strange red smoke drifted into the starry sky. Droves of people fled into the OutRim. Military hover crafts zoomed overhead barking orders for people to evacuate in an orderly fashion. Explosions were followed by pulsations of light of heat. The ground shook. More screaming, and the sound of laser discharge.
Blue ran right into the crowd, trying to get someone to talk to him.
They rushed past in frenzy, valued belongings clutched in hand, fleeing from the blasts behind them on the horizon. The crowds were mostly made up of young men. The lone women Blue spotted were shoved away as they sought to run with others, until they hugged themselves, and ran in a small group of their own.
There were even soldiers in the mass exodus.
“What’s happening?” Blue yelled as people milled past him. “Stop. Wait.”
Blue spun and reached out as people pushed past him. No one paid him any mind, and when anybody took the time to heed his cries, they took one look at him, and ran harder. He grabbed a woman by the elbow, but she screamed in his face. Blue was so startled by her vehement shrieks, he let her go, not wanting to frighten her more than she obviously was. He was no closer to finding out what was going on.
His head ached, and Kali was nowhere to be seen.
Blue lost his temper.
With a subtle flex of power, he doubled a lone man over and dragged him from the stampede into the shadows.
The older man fought wildly, so Blue straddled his upper chest, and slapped his cheek to get his attention. “Listen,” he growled, lifting his knee from the man’s throat, so he could talk. “I need to know what’s happening.”
The man stared at him with absolute terror. Blue closed his mouth to hide his teeth, but it was too late, and the man renewed his struggles with considerable fervour. “You’re one of them,” he yelled. “Get off. Don’t hurt me.”
“Calm,” Blue ordered. “Your name?”
“J-Jake,” the man spluttered, eyes red with tears. “Let me go. Don’t p-put one of t-t-those things on me. I don’t want to die.”
“Listen closely, Jake. Tell me what is happening over there. Why are things on fire? Why are people running?”
“Aliens,” Jake screeched. “It’s over, we’re doomed.” He wailed, sobbing into the dirt. “We fight but nothing works. They move things with their mind. They’re in our heads. Red gas melts the skin off our bones. The parasites take the women. They took my wife, my baby-girl.”
“Omicron?”
A dark haired male with glowing green eyes loomed over Blue. He was dressed like an everyday LoCaste, except for a string of bizarre looking pods attached to a strip of biomechanical material slung across his chest.
Blue knew his name.
Peter.
“Omicron, allow me.” Peter offered his hand and Blue automatically took it, lifting off the pinned man to let him run away.
Jake pushed onto his hands and knees, but Peter dropped onto his back and flattened him. He pulled on one of the pods and it detached from its anchor.
The pod’s armoured skin split down the middle to reveal a sallow pudgy creature half a foot long. Tapered at one end, the other was ringed with tiny teeth. Peter pried the fleshy thing from the hard cocoon, clear slime dribbling onto his hand, and discarded the shell. Exposed, the slug-like thing mewled, and wiggled in his fist. The mouth opened and closed with a squelching, sucking motion.
The name of the creature floated into Blue’s mind.
A Symbiont.
A parasite found by the Novae as the dominant species on a dying planet. They harvested the creatures and bred them to obey the commands of the Hive. They were spawned in batches of thousands, and attached to a Host until death. It secreted a poison that eroded the cerebral cortex, killing the Host’s original cognitive function and becoming the primary brain.
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt me,” Jake screamed. He struggled to stare over his shoulder. Snorting, Peter mashed Jake’s face into the ground. He ripped open the back of his shirt to expose the nape of his neck. “You promised me. You– Ahhh!”
The Symbiont attacked with a frantic wriggling, attaching itself to the flesh exposed to its seeking mouth, and Jake convulsed.
Wiping his gooey hand on Jake’s back, Peter stood shaking his head. “You think they’d make it easy on themselves.”
Knowing he needed to keep his face impassive, Blue looked at him blandly, but couldn’t find the nonchalance to respond with. Instinctively, he wove a barrier of energy around his mind and freaked out in there.
Jake stopped fitting. He lurched jerkily onto his feet; legs bowed, hunched body swaying. His glassy eyes stared straight through Blue, no condemnation, or any kind of emotion present at all.
“Gather women,” Peter ordered.
The Host once known as Jake turned at the command and strode towards the city he’d run from in terror. Blue wanted to shudder when he spotted the Symbiont, gleaming slickly as it controlled its new Host.
He had to find Kali.
“It’s better to keep the instructions simple, don’t you think? Give them too much to remember and they get confused, slaughter anything they set eyes upon.” Peter sighed, as if such a thing was merely annoying rather than horrifying. “What shall we do now, Omicron?”
Blue said nothing.
“I see your aura settles. Have you only just returned after reconditioning with the Hive?” Peter’s eyes narrowed. “Why did it take so long to rehabilitate you and why do you look lost? You do know who you are and your purpose?” Peter’s hand crept towards his laser-knife.
“He knows,” a voice drawled. “Do you know your purpose yet?”
Peter relaxed. “Sister-Upsilon,” he greeted with deference.
“Brother-Omega,” she replied blithely then she moved.
She grabbed Peter’s hair and yanked his head back. Deadly with accuracy, she stabbed a laser knife into the s
ide of his neck then wrenched it across his throat, slicing around, and pulling the blade away from his body in a clean downward thrust.
Blue might have been impressed by the fluidity of the move had he not been reeling back, scrubbing to clean the spray of blood that splattered his face.
Mouth twisted into a grimace of pain, Peter barely had time to grab for his ravaged throat before his legs gave out, and he crumpled.
Blue stared at the newcomer with wide eyes. He’d seen death before, but never delivered so brutally, and with such acerbic composure.
The Valkyrie-like female shrugged at his horror-struck expression. She switched off her laser knife and tucked it into her pocket. Her hair divided into two braids that were white at the roots and ended in flowing pink hair. She wore a gray bodysuit with purple moon boots. A duffel bag rode her shoulder and looked heavy.
A male with white-rooted hair tied into a messy ebony topknot stopped beside her, clucking. His oval face dropped in disapproval, and he crossed willowy arms over a narrow chest. He was not much taller than her. “Another?”
“Stars. I couldn’t risk him sending a mental push to the Hive. We’ve discussed this six times, Ken. Do we have to go over it every time I kill someone?” She rolled glowing red eyes skyward. “If they become a threat they must be removed. He suspected something was wrong.”
“My calling is to heal.” He sighed and stared down at Peter’s body morosely. “I’m going to have a problem with it.”
“Omicron Blue. I’m called Lara. That’s Kenshin, but I call him Ken.” She backed her words with a strong mental nudge, a handshake. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
He was startled by the touch to his mind and even more startled by how familiar she felt to him.
“I know you,” Blue breathed.
Their faces floated into his mind’s eye along with a full work down of biometrics and skill assessments.
Lara was twenty-four, a Jupite, and a MainLander like him. She left her abusive home when she legally became an adult, and emigrated to ContinentTwo Quadrant31 to work as a server in a bar. She had gained knowledge in battle logistics and weaponry. Though he looked older than Lara, Kenshin was two years younger, an Earthling, and was cast-off from his CatEye family as a baby due to his strange looks. He worked as a street sweep since legally allowed for the LoCaste – the age of eight – and was highly trained in advanced medical practices, as well as holistic and spiritual treatments.
Blue blinked.
The information was there as if it had been there his whole life.
“Your reconditioning took a long time,” Kenshin said. His eyes scanned the horizon for trouble. “You have a strong will.”
“You’re the second to suggest it took longer than expected.” Blue frowned. “How long have I been gone?”
“Three days,” Lara answered. “Most of our kind defected in a few hours when told the truth of their origin. Some took longer. I resisted for a day then realised I wasn’t going anywhere unless I accepted my role in the Hive hierarchy. The moment I caved, the Creator sent me back to where I was beamed up. I was expecting to feel different when they sent me back, but I’m still me, you know?”
Kenshin nodded. “It was the same for me.”
“Ken and I think it’s to do with how we felt before the took us. We were both already looking for you when we were taken.” Lara looked vindicated. “I knew you’d resist them. I knew you wouldn’t give in.”
“After learning your rank, I had doubts,” Kenshin confessed. “I now owe her a hundred credits. What she’ll do with them now the structure of the world as we know it has ended, I don’t know.”
“Just make sure you pay.”
Blue struggled to focus. He knew that he’d been in the clutches of the Novae, his Creator, but he couldn’t assimilate all of what they had told him. He remembered being with Kali and remembered the pain of the red light. He had been fighting something, and it had taken her from him.
Then….
He’d woken in the junkyard without Kali.
He cursed and pressed his eyes closed, just for a nanosecond, to catch his breath.
Lara was sympathetic. “That transport beam is a bitch on the senses. Still feeling lightheaded? Memory lapses?”
Blue rubbed his temple. “Correct.”
“That’ll wear off in a few hours. Your abilities will be diminished until then, but considering who you are, you have nothing to worry about. You’ll never get the lost time back, but that’s just your brain protecting itself from information overload.”
“You know me?” Blue mumbled, incoherent as he tried to order his mind.
“We all know you, and each other. It feels strange, doesn’t it, after spending so long in hiding, but you’ll get comfortable using your abilities in the open real quick. You are our Omicron. The information is there now; you just need time to access all of it. Don’t force yourself, let it come to you naturally.”
Taking her advice, Blue buried his confusion to focus on one thing at a time. “You know Kali? Where she is?”
“There is no Hybrid by this name,” Kenshin replied. “Is she Human?”
Blue nodded.
“Where did you leave her?” Kenshin asked softly. “If she was out here with you it’s likely she has been taken to the slave encampment in Quadrant1, the place you are supposed to go.”
Blue’s face twisted in horror as that sank in and information as what happened at the encampment filtered through the fog in his mind. “They took her with me.”
Kenshin cocked his head. “That is not logical. They took a Human for reconditioning?”
“She was caught in the transport beam. They dragged her away.”
“Oh.” Lara was nonplussed. “They would have dumped her back on the ground for collection by the Host.”
“I must find her.”
Kenshin and Lara shared a look.
“What?” Blue demanded.
“We need to set up a secure location and figure out just what we’re doing,” said Lara. “We’re in the middle of a war zone.” She moved closer. “You are Hybrid, a cross breed of Human and Novae, a genetically superior species from another galaxy who have come to harvest stock planted here millions of years ago. To every Human you are something evil to run screaming from. To every Hybrid, you are the Omicron, the voice of the Novae on Earth. Are you even sure this Human, this Kali, will want to see you now?”
Blue opened his mouth to assert the affirmative, but suddenly wasn’t so sure. “Doesn’t matter. I need to know she’s alive. I can convince her to come with me. To keep her safe.”
Lara inhaled and let loose with a rueful shake of the head. “Where do we go?”
“Her habitat is in Quadrant2. We need vehicles.”
“Quad2 is crawling with Host. Even if she evaded them there’s no way she’ll have escaped the Hybrids sweeping the area. She’s probably been taken to the slave encampment in Quad1, and that is a no go area. Chances are she’s already been inseminated for spawning.”
“Lara,” Kenshin said quietly. “Be gentle. This news hurts him.”
“Have to know,” Blue insisted weakly. He started toward the road, determined to find a FloBi to take him to where Kali most likely hid. “And the other of you?” he asked before he became too engrossed in his search.
“Other?” Lara echoed. “It’s just me and Ken.”
“The one following us. He’s almost hiding his aura from me completely. He showed up after you did, so he was tracking you, not me.”
Lara spun. A laser blade appeared in her fist. “I sense nothing.”
“I did not want you to,” a deep voice rumbled.
A giant stepped from the shadows, a woollen snood covering his head and shoulders.
Prowling around his legs was a snow leopard FetchMe, her eye glinting with intelligence.
Blue’s mind sparked, recognising the Hybrid’s strong features and cerulean eyes. “Igor,” he greeted.
14.
Blue was disconcerted how he and his fellow defector Hybrids moved out in the open during the invasion. Host swarmed into habitats and dragged families out screaming, separating the males from the females, and wrestling the older males to the ground to be joined with a fresh Symbiont.
Lara showed no signs that the scene disturbed her, though Blue did catch her balling her hands into fists as a young woman was dragged bloody and unconscious into a cage with a dozen others.
Kenshin was the most visibly affected by the carnage. There were tears in his eyes as he sunk further and further into his seat, his chin on his chest.
The Hybrids were considerably less in number than the Host, from what Blue gleaned from his own mind and what he saw. There was less than two thousand on Earth, the largest concentration of that force here in the inner quadrants where the population was densest.
Blue parked outside Kali’s habitat.
The front door had been ripped out and thrown aside.
“This is an unnecessary risk,” Lara warned as they climbed out the FloVe they’d commandeered. “It may turn the Creator’s attention to us sooner rather than later.”
“If I had a connection to a Human,” Igor mused, “I would want to know of their fate.”
A deafening boom shook the ground and had them tottering to the side.
The Hybrids twisted in horror, each increasing the strength of their aura in case they needed to protect themselves.
On the horizon, a mushroom cloud of smoke exploded into the sky, the dark grey lightening to white closer to the top. Judging by the sheer size of it, and the orange haze beneath it, a whole quadrant had gone up in flames.
“Need to find her quickly,” Blue choked.
Lara rolled her eyes, but even she looked pale. “I’ll go in through the back.” She pushed past them, and stealthy moved around the building.
Blue pushed forward, not having a clue where to look next if Kali wasn’t there. Could he rendezvous at the slave encampments as were his orders and discover information about her that way? Would they pick up on his lingering attachment to her and punish him for it? Would they kill her?