Chapter 1 – Unwilling Sacrifice
Today is the anniversary of my birth. One hundred and ninety-one years old. If life had remained normal, I would have taken my place among the President’s Council while my parents retired. My Union celebration would have reached one hundred years. Maybe six children in that time? Janie always loved children. I might have become a high general, or perhaps I would have stayed with the military Probes. Who could know the possible futures I might have had?
How many years has it been since I’ve thought of this? Why now? Dearest Janie, are you somewhere in the void of my mind, shouting for me to wake up as I once shouted for you? I have dishonored you. I never managed your revenge. I am a fool. Weak. Soft. Everything my nightmares suggest. Oh, sweet Janie. Where are you to bring me back? Where are you to tell me the right path? Where are you to show me things I never saw without you? I am so alone.
The Journal of Lansetisch, Prisoner, Mining colony Tercer.
Lansetisch sat, uneven legs bent awkwardly beneath his malformed body. He stared through eyes that did not sit evenly, thus he found himself tilting his head on occasion. Only a few feet away, black space drifted to give the view of the asteroid belt that made up his home. This had all belonged to his father, once upon a time. It should have come to him.
Instead, he gave a century to unwillingly support the very cause that destroyed him. The only thing that protected him from asphyxiation was a skin-thin layer of chemical-electrical compound. The irony was not lost on the darkin. One small skin between him and freedom.
“This area is restricted. Return to the dormitories or the mines.”
Lansetisch lifted the longer of his mismatched arms and waved his acknowledgment of the intercom’s message, but otherwise ignored the command.
“Lansetisch,” the tone of the darkin guard became demanding and dangerous, “obey now or we will withhold rations and double your workload.”
Lansetisch spun around and to his feet with more grace than his hobbled, misshaped body should have allowed.
“Come and make me.” He growled low in his chest, a sound from the darkin he used to be; a distant echo of his true self. “My ninety years here is probably longer than you have lived. I have led men into actual wars and battled men twice your worth. Come and make me do anything I do not wish to do!”
His final words were a bellow of molten rage. They echoed around the small cave that had once been a mine; then served as a game area for prisoners; and now sat unused and abandoned by all except himself.
His rage was not new, it seethed beneath the fog of depression and monotony, but recently the fog had begun to lift drawing him inexorably toward the inevitable explosion. He did not care anymore. The only reason he did not commit suicide and take the whole mining asteroid with him was for the sake of his beloveds. Revenging both his ischtera and his keptisch provided all the reason he needed to live through any hell.
The image of James, Miserable Ruiner of Lives, flashed before Lansetisch’s eyes. That darkin’s smarmy, gloating look would shift first to surprise, then to fear. Lansetisch would approach slowly. His grip would lock around the pathetic keptisch’s scrawny neck until no life remained within the evil body.
“I am sorry, my sweet.” Lansetisch’s head dropped, and one hand rubbed against his mostly bald head. “I did not protect you.” Even after a century, the memory of echoed pain locked his lungs, forcing him to strain for each breath. He wrapped one arm around his thin frame to hold together as the memory cut off his senses momentarily. He was once again in his cell, helpless to stop her as she sliced her own flesh; living every connected moment through their joined minds.
“Lansetisch!” The speaker rang to life again. “Move into the corridors now and await your orders.”
Orders? The word pulled him from the brink and shifted his line of thinking. Orders. He pondered the word as he hobbled into the passageway that wound through the asteroid and eventually returned to the open commons on the uneven surface.
“It is good to see that you still have some fight left in you.” A voice spoke from the deepest part of the darkness.
Lansetisch did not bother trying to discern the form within the shadow. By the low register of the voice, and the height and thin build, barely visible, it was darkin. “What do you want?”
Despite the hidden darkin’s obvious hesitance to be known, Lansetisch prepared himself for a physical attack. James enjoyed terrorizing through pawns, and it had been many years since the evil darkin’s last torturous visit to the fallen general.
“We have decided that we will rescue you, but you must first show us that you are worthy of rescuing.”
Worth rescuing? Lansetisch almost choked the shadowy form right there. Instead, he clenched and unclenched his fists, holding in a breath lest it turn into uncontrolled action.
“Show you? Have the ninety years not proved my loyalty?”
“Your impatience brought you here. The rebel council will help only if you prove that you can regulate your behavior. No infractions. Fall off the radar.”
Lansetisch felt the side of his lip pull up to expose the teeth below; dull, blocky teeth, so useless in tearing apart flesh. “The rebels want me to prove myself? Have they considered that it may be the rebels who need to prove their worth? Even at your prime you had no chance of defeating the president and his council. Now? Now, he has cemented his position. The Empire bows to his whim and will. What do the rebels have?”
The shadowy figure did not respond for a long moment. Like a true darkin, it did not fidget or move, thus betraying no feelings to the once-general. “I have defined our requirements. If you do not want your freedom, then your actions will show it. Ten years.”
“Ten years.” Lansetisch hissed the words. A full century lost; one full century that his enemies grew stronger while he rotted to little more than the human shell he’d been forced into. “So be it.”
“Return to your duties. Your work requirement is doubled. Your rations will be withheld for the next four days.”
“This form needs more sustenance than that.”
“Perhaps you will get off for good behavior.” The snark in the darkin’s response accompanied a mocking tilt to the shadowed head.
Lansetisch punched the ore-infused rock opposite the shadow, showering down pebbles and larger pieces of mixed ore. The burn of broken skin did little to distract him as he knelt to retrieve the largest piece. In fact, there was more pain in kneeling than in the punch, but the irony was not amusing today. Lansetisch hefted the piece with one hand, looked pointedly toward the shadow, then crushed it. The squeal of angry metal ore and explosion of rock sent up a cloud of orange dust.
“I may look human, but I am not. Show me the proper respect or you will come to regret it.”
“I do not fear you, beast. You ordered the attack on my homeworld. You think you suffer, but I lived through your misplaced loyalty.”
“You have no idea what suffering is.” Lansetisch seized the guard by the front of his uniform so that the tall darkin lifted a few inches off the ground. Holding him there hurt more than the beaten general would ever admit, but after so many years in this forsaken form, such pain was easy to ignore. “Have you ever lost your female? Paumatisch and his spawn, James, tore apart my ischtera’s sanity until there was nothing left. Do you know what it is to live through a Union death locked only a room away? Have you watched your keptisch skinned alive in front of you, and all you had to do to save ker was betray the rebel’s new base?”
A small amount of light played off the translucent sheen on the fear-filled darkin’s cheeks and neck. Now that Lansetisch knew the rebel’s gender, he smiled wickedly, causing the keptisch to swallow hard.
The rebel shook ker head. “I cannot comprehend.”
Lansetisch forced himself to drop the kep. “Do not try to tell me that I deserve what I have passed through or that I must prove myself. I did fight on the Imperial side because I believed they were right. When I realized they were not, I turned and defended your cause with the lives of my family. I have no need to prove myself to a group that believes parading around war heroes will make a difference. You are losing, and even if I rally the people for you, what is the next step?”
Lansetich stepped away from the trembling keptisch and walked a slow circle, spinning back to face the rebel. “You come to me coated in delusions and threats; I will give you your ten years, and then you will release me and I will destroy Paumatisch and his spawn alone if I have to.”
Lansetisch stormed away. The interaction stole enough of his rage to make it manageable, but beating rocks for a few hours sounded like a wise idea unless he wanted to ruin his ten-year probation on the first day. Perhaps his mental cloud had lifted just in time.
* * *
She kicked her legs sending a shower of small pebbles down the nearly sheer face of the cliff she sat on. The sun baked Colorado desert shimmered in the distance. Total silence, barely broken by the cries of eagles or hawks hunting among the ruins of an ancient and noble people, permeated her very soul. It was only here that she felt even a marginal measure of peace. The cacophony of inane and unnecessary humans disappeared as if they’d never existed. She breathed in the peace and held out her arms, eyes closed as if she might join the birds of prey in their dance among the clouds.
Tires crackled over dirt, and an engine growled and groaned, working harder than it was meant to in order to cross the unpaved landscape. She knew without looking that the car was meant for her long before the brakes squealed to a stop and a door slammed shut.
“Sweetie, can you please come away from the edge. You know I can’t come over there.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m here.” She looked out across the canyon and traced the outlines of Anasazi ruins with her eyes.
“It’s not. Now come over here and talk to me.”
With a sigh, she pulled up one leg, then started to lift herself only to let her leg slip back over the edge. She let out a cry of alarm as she dropped back to the dirt, and Mel dove, anxiety coupling with a strangled yell as his instinct to save battled his fear of heights.
Giggling, she lay back against the brown ground to stare up at him backward. “Got ya!”
“Mary! Stop that right now. You know my heart can’t handle things like that. Get your butt over here.”
The girl they called Mary continued to laugh heartily as she pulled herself away from the edge and regained her feet. Built like a wrestler, she was nearly as wide in the chest as her foster aide, though nowhere near as tall. “Oh, come on Mel, I do it every time.”
“And every time I have a heart attack.” He put one hand on his chest, breathing hard. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“One more month, then you’re done with me. Less if the darkin come.”
Mel started to shake his head, his smile dropping into an exaggerated pout. At her last words, his head cocked sideways. “Back to the darkin thing?”
Mary shrugged and glanced out over her canyon again. “What do you want? Usually, you leave me out here an hour or two.”
“Your foster family has requested that you be moved back to the group home.” Mel’s tone gave him away: half disapproving, half pity. “You punched their son’s nose, Mary, where is all the anger management we’ve been working on? Can’t you handle the stupidity of one dumb kid for another month?”
“He snuck into my room in the middle of the night. Can you guess the rest?”
She watched his jaw drop, grateful for both his surprise and his instant outrage. “Why didn’t you tell me? Mary, this is exactly the sort of thing you should not withhold.”
Mary boldly pushed one finger into the burly man’s chest. “The true question, Mel, is why you didn’t ask it in the first place. You, of all people, know that I only attack when I have a reason.”
“Yes, but sweetie,” he grabbed her finger and the connected hand with both of his, “we’re trying not to attack at all, right? How many years have we been working on this?”
“If they’d just leave me alone,” Mary sulked, pulling her hand free. “I just want to be left alone. I don’t belong here.”
“And we’re back to the darkin.” He threw up his hands and tossed his head toward the sky as if begging the gods why they’d stuck him with such a girl as his charge. “How many times have I told you, they don’t select specific people. Ever since the first harvest, they take whoever we give them.”
“I’m well aware of who they take.” She bit in a voice louder than she’d intended.
“That first harvest was a mess. We didn’t have a system, just fear and reaction. It’s not like that now.” His voice dropped. “Millions of people lost someone they love, but they don’t walk around attacking everyone else. There are rules, Mary, and you’re almost eighteen. Your age can’t save you anymore if you choose to break them.”
“They’ll be here soon.” Mary crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at the sky as if the massive darkin ship might suddenly drop through the clouds. “I can sense it.” And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Her life was one darkin raid after another. For the last two, a particular darkin had sought her out, appearing right where she was and almost snatching her despite the fact that she was not part of the required harvest. She still saw his pale red eyes within the green, stretched-oval face. The worst were the interlocking, razor-sharp teeth that still waged havoc with her nightmares, sometimes saving her, sometimes eating her.
And that always led to the unanswerable question: Why? Why did they require half a million humans every five to seven years? Why did they punish by taking extra if the ‘harvest’, as they called it, wasn’t ready? What did they do with all of those humans?
Theories abounded. Everything from gods leading men to a higher life down to sacrifices for some giant volcano somewhere. Mary shivered.
“Come on, let’s go home.”
“To the group home?” Mary allowed herself to be led toward the passenger side of the car.
“Where else, sweetie? We don’t have another option.”
The pair drove in silence until he hit the paved roads. As the external noise dropped off, Mel glanced over. “So? You’re almost eighteen. You told me you’d tell me your real name when you turned eighteen.”
“I have no name.” Mary looked out the window.
Mel sighed. “Will you take a new one, then? Given your circumstances, the agency is willing to pay for a name change, you just have to tell us what you want it to be.”
“Why would I care? Call me whatever you want.” Mary’s arms crossed again, and she had to force them back into her lap. “I hate this stupid world.”
“Well, we still love you. Everyone at the agency. We fight over who gets to come and pick you up when you wander off.”
Mary snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’re such a geek.”
Break lights in front of them accompanied the sound of squealing tires. Mel followed suit with a stream of curses. Both occupants slammed forward, jerking to a stop with their seatbelts. Mary didn’t even have a moment to react as her arm and one knee whacked against the hard plastic of the glovebox. Adrenaline chased needles of pain to leave her shaking; heart racing.
Mel opened his door, irritation in every movement. “Hey, buddy, what the heck?”
The driver didn’t move. His passenger didn’t move either. Both stared upward, leaning forward to get a better view through their windshield.
Mary’s heart shuddered to a stop as a tingle along her neck almost like a ghost itch of the darkin’s touch five years before. “They’re here,” she whispered.
“What?” He ducked his head back in. “This idiot isn’t even moving! There’s two more in front of them. Gotta be an accident.”
Mary’s finger lifted toward a grey-silver object, like a flying stone, miles above them in the sky. A sheen of heat fanned away from it. As her finger lifted, her jaw hung. She’d never actually seen the massive darkin ship before. Usually, it suspended over Iceland waiting for the quota to be gathered. This time, however, the ship moved across her own state. It remained tiny in comparison to the video footage she’d seen, still too high for the fine details that fascinated scientists. Her mind flickered to science class and the levels of the atmosphere. Burning meant the outer layers, didn’t it? Still too far for them to suck up people, hopefully.
Mel’s head turned in her peripheral vision and his curses died on his lips. “Oh—”
Mary undid her seatbelt and opened her door almost automatically.
“Mary? Mary, stay in the car.” She heard him dive across the seat for her, but she ignored him.
She wasn’t the only one; all down the road people exited their vehicles to stare up. The science nerd in her studied the blunt angles. If it really were a stone, it would make a perfect skipping stone. Aerodynamics didn’t seem to play a role in the ship’s design. Why would such a ship breach the atmosphere, especially with their capability to teleport, or transport, or however they sucked up millions of people. There must be a limit to their range, or interference from the atmosphere.
Her obsession to understand the alien race caused near universal ostracism from every foster and group home. Everyone in the world shied away from the tv when discussions or footage of the aliens came on. Mary leaned closer, watching for her red-eyed darkin.
She stepped to the edge of the road and onto the shoulder, lifting her hands. “Hey! Hey, I’m here!”
“Mary!” Mel slammed into her, locking her arms back down at her sides. “What on earth are you thinking? Do you want to become lunch? Only carnivores and omnivores have sharp teeth. They wouldn’t call it a harvest if it wasn’t for some sort of food commodity. You do not want to volunteer.”
She’d heard the theory, and it rang absolutely true for all the reasons he’d mentioned, but she couldn’t deny the draw.
“Girl.” A deep voice spoke from behind the pair.
The unearthly, low baritone carried into her core, vibrating her with its demanding power. Mel stiffened. Mary spun out of his grip to face a pair of pale red eyes.
The red-eyed darkin assessed her like a piece of meat in a butcher shop. “You are too big.”
“Too big?”
He hissed. “I already paid for you.”
Mary could see he was talking to himself, disappointed about something, but she didn’t quite understand the context. “Why am I too big?”
“Quite an annoyance. Hurry up and come. Perhaps I will find another use for you.”
Mel gripped her arm. “Don’t go. Mary, this is your world. I know you don’t feel like it, but there’s nothing he can offer you except death.”
The darkin growled low, a feral dog ready to attack.
Mel released her spastically. He made a noise in his throat between a moan and a cry. “Mary—” he begged.
Mel’s fear seemed to transfer, snapping her back to her senses. “No. I don’t want to go.” She stiffened herself, pulling to her full height; barely diaphragm-high on the lanky green creature. “Why do you stalk me?”
“I bought you. You irritate me. Come now, or else.”
“Bought.” Slavery? The word stopped her. Something told her she should fear the word, but she didn’t. At the same time, she felt no desire to be part of it. The concept had never crossed her mind.
When the over-sized creature moved, he blurred with speed. Surprise delayed her reaction until his iron grip tightened around her wrist. Spindly though they might look, darkin were solid muscle. Mary had never lost in a game of strength or stamina. She won wrestling tournaments with hardly any effort, yet she couldn’t move within the darkin’s long-fingered grip. The bones crushed together painfully, sending her to her knees.
With hardly a movement, the darkin yanked her and the last earthly sound she heard was Mel’s scream.
Chapter 1 – Unwilling Sacrifice
Today is the anniversary of my birth. One hundred and ninety-one years old. If life had remained normal, I would have taken my place among the President’s Council while my parents retired. My Union celebration would have reached one hundred years. Maybe six children in that time? Janie always loved children. I might have become a high general, or perhaps I would have stayed with the military Probes. Who could know the possible futures I might have had?
How many years has it been since I’ve thought of this? Why now? Dearest Janie, are you somewhere in the void of my mind, shouting for me to wake up as I once shouted for you? I have dishonored you. I never managed your revenge. I am a fool. Weak. Soft. Everything my nightmares suggest. Oh, sweet Janie. Where are you to bring me back? Where are you to tell me the right path? Where are you to show me things I never saw without you? I am so alone.
The Journal of Lansetisch, Prisoner, Mining colony Tercer.
Lansetisch sat, uneven legs bent awkwardly beneath his malformed body. He stared through eyes that did not sit evenly, thus he found himself tilting his head on occasion. Only a few feet away, black space drifted to give the view of the asteroid belt that made up his home. This had all belonged to his father, once upon a time. It should have come to him.
Instead, he gave a century to unwillingly support the very cause that destroyed him. The only thing that protected him from asphyxiation was a skin-thin layer of chemical-electrical compound. The irony was not lost on the darkin. One small skin between him and freedom.
“This area is restricted. Return to the dormitories or the mines.”
Lansetisch lifted the longer of his mismatched arms and waved his acknowledgment of the intercom’s message, but otherwise ignored the command.
“Lansetisch,” the tone of the darkin guard became demanding and dangerous, “obey now or we will withhold rations and double your workload.”
Lansetisch spun around and to his feet with more grace than his hobbled, misshaped body should have allowed.
“Come and make me.” He growled low in his chest, a sound from the darkin he used to be; a distant echo of his true self. “My ninety years here is probably longer than you have lived. I have led men into actual wars and battled men twice your worth. Come and make me do anything I do not wish to do!”
His final words were a bellow of molten rage. They echoed around the small cave that had once been a mine; then served as a game area for prisoners; and now sat unused and abandoned by all except himself.
His rage was not new, it seethed beneath the fog of depression and monotony, but recently the fog had begun to lift drawing him inexorably toward the inevitable explosion. He did not care anymore. The only reason he did not commit suicide and take the whole mining asteroid with him was for the sake of his beloveds. Revenging both his ischtera and his keptisch provided all the reason he needed to live through any hell.
The image of James, Miserable Ruiner of Lives, flashed before Lansetisch’s eyes. That darkin’s smarmy, gloating look would shift first to surprise, then to fear. Lansetisch would approach slowly. His grip would lock around the pathetic keptisch’s scrawny neck until no life remained within the evil body.
“I am sorry, my sweet.” Lansetisch’s head dropped, and one hand rubbed against his mostly bald head. “I did not protect you.” Even after a century, the memory of echoed pain locked his lungs, forcing him to strain for each breath. He wrapped one arm around his thin frame to hold together as the memory cut off his senses momentarily. He was once again in his cell, helpless to stop her as she sliced her own flesh; living every connected moment through their joined minds.
“Lansetisch!” The speaker rang to life again. “Move into the corridors now and await your orders.”
Orders? The word pulled him from the brink and shifted his line of thinking. Orders. He pondered the word as he hobbled into the passageway that wound through the asteroid and eventually returned to the open commons on the uneven surface.
“It is good to see that you still have some fight left in you.” A voice spoke from the deepest part of the darkness.
Lansetisch did not bother trying to discern the form within the shadow. By the low register of the voice, and the height and thin build, barely visible, it was darkin. “What do you want?”
Despite the hidden darkin’s obvious hesitance to be known, Lansetisch prepared himself for a physical attack. James enjoyed terrorizing through pawns, and it had been many years since the evil darkin’s last torturous visit to the fallen general.
“We have decided that we will rescue you, but you must first show us that you are worthy of rescuing.”
Worth rescuing? Lansetisch almost choked the shadowy form right there. Instead, he clenched and unclenched his fists, holding in a breath lest it turn into uncontrolled action.
“Show you? Have the ninety years not proved my loyalty?”
“Your impatience brought you here. The rebel council will help only if you prove that you can regulate your behavior. No infractions. Fall off the radar.”
Lansetisch felt the side of his lip pull up to expose the teeth below; dull, blocky teeth, so useless in tearing apart flesh. “The rebels want me to prove myself? Have they considered that it may be the rebels who need to prove their worth? Even at your prime you had no chance of defeating the president and his council. Now? Now, he has cemented his position. The Empire bows to his whim and will. What do the rebels have?”
The shadowy figure did not respond for a long moment. Like a true darkin, it did not fidget or move, thus betraying no feelings to the once-general. “I have defined our requirements. If you do not want your freedom, then your actions will show it. Ten years.”
“Ten years.” Lansetisch hissed the words. A full century lost; one full century that his enemies grew stronger while he rotted to little more than the human shell he’d been forced into. “So be it.”
“Return to your duties. Your work requirement is doubled. Your rations will be withheld for the next four days.”
“This form needs more sustenance than that.”
“Perhaps you will get off for good behavior.” The snark in the darkin’s response accompanied a mocking tilt to the shadowed head.
Lansetisch punched the ore-infused rock opposite the shadow, showering down pebbles and larger pieces of mixed ore. The burn of broken skin did little to distract him as he knelt to retrieve the largest piece. In fact, there was more pain in kneeling than in the punch, but the irony was not amusing today. Lansetisch hefted the piece with one hand, looked pointedly toward the shadow, then crushed it. The squeal of angry metal ore and explosion of rock sent up a cloud of orange dust.
“I may look human, but I am not. Show me the proper respect or you will come to regret it.”
“I do not fear you, beast. You ordered the attack on my homeworld. You think you suffer, but I lived through your misplaced loyalty.”
“You have no idea what suffering is.” Lansetisch seized the guard by the front of his uniform so that the tall darkin lifted a few inches off the ground. Holding him there hurt more than the beaten general would ever admit, but after so many years in this forsaken form, such pain was easy to ignore. “Have you ever lost your female? Paumatisch and his spawn, James, tore apart my ischtera’s sanity until there was nothing left. Do you know what it is to live through a Union death locked only a room away? Have you watched your keptisch skinned alive in front of you, and all you had to do to save ker was betray the rebel’s new base?”
A small amount of light played off the translucent sheen on the fear-filled darkin’s cheeks and neck. Now that Lansetisch knew the rebel’s gender, he smiled wickedly, causing the keptisch to swallow hard.
The rebel shook ker head. “I cannot comprehend.”
Lansetisch forced himself to drop the kep. “Do not try to tell me that I deserve what I have passed through or that I must prove myself. I did fight on the Imperial side because I believed they were right. When I realized they were not, I turned and defended your cause with the lives of my family. I have no need to prove myself to a group that believes parading around war heroes will make a difference. You are losing, and even if I rally the people for you, what is the next step?”
Lansetich stepped away from the trembling keptisch and walked a slow circle, spinning back to face the rebel. “You come to me coated in delusions and threats; I will give you your ten years, and then you will release me and I will destroy Paumatisch and his spawn alone if I have to.”
Lansetisch stormed away. The interaction stole enough of his rage to make it manageable, but beating rocks for a few hours sounded like a wise idea unless he wanted to ruin his ten-year probation on the first day. Perhaps his mental cloud had lifted just in time.
* * *
She kicked her legs sending a shower of small pebbles down the nearly sheer face of the cliff she sat on. The sun baked Colorado desert shimmered in the distance. Total silence, barely broken by the cries of eagles or hawks hunting among the ruins of an ancient and noble people, permeated her very soul. It was only here that she felt even a marginal measure of peace. The cacophony of inane and unnecessary humans disappeared as if they’d never existed. She breathed in the peace and held out her arms, eyes closed as if she might join the birds of prey in their dance among the clouds.
Tires crackled over dirt, and an engine growled and groaned, working harder than it was meant to in order to cross the unpaved landscape. She knew without looking that the car was meant for her long before the brakes squealed to a stop and a door slammed shut.
“Sweetie, can you please come away from the edge. You know I can’t come over there.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m here.” She looked out across the canyon and traced the outlines of Anasazi ruins with her eyes.
“It’s not. Now come over here and talk to me.”
With a sigh, she pulled up one leg, then started to lift herself only to let her leg slip back over the edge. She let out a cry of alarm as she dropped back to the dirt, and Mel dove, anxiety coupling with a strangled yell as his instinct to save battled his fear of heights.
Giggling, she lay back against the brown ground to stare up at him backward. “Got ya!”
“Mary! Stop that right now. You know my heart can’t handle things like that. Get your butt over here.”
The girl they called Mary continued to laugh heartily as she pulled herself away from the edge and regained her feet. Built like a wrestler, she was nearly as wide in the chest as her foster aide, though nowhere near as tall. “Oh, come on Mel, I do it every time.”
“And every time I have a heart attack.” He put one hand on his chest, breathing hard. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“One more month, then you’re done with me. Less if the darkin come.”
Mel started to shake his head, his smile dropping into an exaggerated pout. At her last words, his head cocked sideways. “Back to the darkin thing?”
Mary shrugged and glanced out over her canyon again. “What do you want? Usually, you leave me out here an hour or two.”
“Your foster family has requested that you be moved back to the group home.” Mel’s tone gave him away: half disapproving, half pity. “You punched their son’s nose, Mary, where is all the anger management we’ve been working on? Can’t you handle the stupidity of one dumb kid for another month?”
“He snuck into my room in the middle of the night. Can you guess the rest?”
She watched his jaw drop, grateful for both his surprise and his instant outrage. “Why didn’t you tell me? Mary, this is exactly the sort of thing you should not withhold.”
Mary boldly pushed one finger into the burly man’s chest. “The true question, Mel, is why you didn’t ask it in the first place. You, of all people, know that I only attack when I have a reason.”
“Yes, but sweetie,” he grabbed her finger and the connected hand with both of his, “we’re trying not to attack at all, right? How many years have we been working on this?”
“If they’d just leave me alone,” Mary sulked, pulling her hand free. “I just want to be left alone. I don’t belong here.”
“And we’re back to the darkin.” He threw up his hands and tossed his head toward the sky as if begging the gods why they’d stuck him with such a girl as his charge. “How many times have I told you, they don’t select specific people. Ever since the first harvest, they take whoever we give them.”
“I’m well aware of who they take.” She bit in a voice louder than she’d intended.
“That first harvest was a mess. We didn’t have a system, just fear and reaction. It’s not like that now.” His voice dropped. “Millions of people lost someone they love, but they don’t walk around attacking everyone else. There are rules, Mary, and you’re almost eighteen. Your age can’t save you anymore if you choose to break them.”
“They’ll be here soon.” Mary crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at the sky as if the massive darkin ship might suddenly drop through the clouds. “I can sense it.” And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Her life was one darkin raid after another. For the last two, a particular darkin had sought her out, appearing right where she was and almost snatching her despite the fact that she was not part of the required harvest. She still saw his pale red eyes within the green, stretched-oval face. The worst were the interlocking, razor-sharp teeth that still waged havoc with her nightmares, sometimes saving her, sometimes eating her.
And that always led to the unanswerable question: Why? Why did they require half a million humans every five to seven years? Why did they punish by taking extra if the ‘harvest’, as they called it, wasn’t ready? What did they do with all of those humans?
Theories abounded. Everything from gods leading men to a higher life down to sacrifices for some giant volcano somewhere. Mary shivered.
“Come on, let’s go home.”
“To the group home?” Mary allowed herself to be led toward the passenger side of the car.
“Where else, sweetie? We don’t have another option.”
The pair drove in silence until he hit the paved roads. As the external noise dropped off, Mel glanced over. “So? You’re almost eighteen. You told me you’d tell me your real name when you turned eighteen.”
“I have no name.” Mary looked out the window.
Mel sighed. “Will you take a new one, then? Given your circumstances, the agency is willing to pay for a name change, you just have to tell us what you want it to be.”
“Why would I care? Call me whatever you want.” Mary’s arms crossed again, and she had to force them back into her lap. “I hate this stupid world.”
“Well, we still love you. Everyone at the agency. We fight over who gets to come and pick you up when you wander off.”
Mary snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’re such a geek.”
Break lights in front of them accompanied the sound of squealing tires. Mel followed suit with a stream of curses. Both occupants slammed forward, jerking to a stop with their seatbelts. Mary didn’t even have a moment to react as her arm and one knee whacked against the hard plastic of the glovebox. Adrenaline chased needles of pain to leave her shaking; heart racing.
Mel opened his door, irritation in every movement. “Hey, buddy, what the heck?”
The driver didn’t move. His passenger didn’t move either. Both stared upward, leaning forward to get a better view through their windshield.
Mary’s heart shuddered to a stop as a tingle along her neck almost like a ghost itch of the darkin’s touch five years before. “They’re here,” she whispered.
“What?” He ducked his head back in. “This idiot isn’t even moving! There’s two more in front of them. Gotta be an accident.”
Mary’s finger lifted toward a grey-silver object, like a flying stone, miles above them in the sky. A sheen of heat fanned away from it. As her finger lifted, her jaw hung. She’d never actually seen the massive darkin ship before. Usually, it suspended over Iceland waiting for the quota to be gathered. This time, however, the ship moved across her own state. It remained tiny in comparison to the video footage she’d seen, still too high for the fine details that fascinated scientists. Her mind flickered to science class and the levels of the atmosphere. Burning meant the outer layers, didn’t it? Still too far for them to suck up people, hopefully.
Mel’s head turned in her peripheral vision and his curses died on his lips. “Oh—”
Mary undid her seatbelt and opened her door almost automatically.
“Mary? Mary, stay in the car.” She heard him dive across the seat for her, but she ignored him.
She wasn’t the only one; all down the road people exited their vehicles to stare up. The science nerd in her studied the blunt angles. If it really were a stone, it would make a perfect skipping stone. Aerodynamics didn’t seem to play a role in the ship’s design. Why would such a ship breach the atmosphere, especially with their capability to teleport, or transport, or however they sucked up millions of people. There must be a limit to their range, or interference from the atmosphere.
Her obsession to understand the alien race caused near universal ostracism from every foster and group home. Everyone in the world shied away from the tv when discussions or footage of the aliens came on. Mary leaned closer, watching for her red-eyed darkin.
She stepped to the edge of the road and onto the shoulder, lifting her hands. “Hey! Hey, I’m here!”
“Mary!” Mel slammed into her, locking her arms back down at her sides. “What on earth are you thinking? Do you want to become lunch? Only carnivores and omnivores have sharp teeth. They wouldn’t call it a harvest if it wasn’t for some sort of food commodity. You do not want to volunteer.”
She’d heard the theory, and it rang absolutely true for all the reasons he’d mentioned, but she couldn’t deny the draw.
“Girl.” A deep voice spoke from behind the pair.
The unearthly, low baritone carried into her core, vibrating her with its demanding power. Mel stiffened. Mary spun out of his grip to face a pair of pale red eyes.
The red-eyed darkin assessed her like a piece of meat in a butcher shop. “You are too big.”
“Too big?”
He hissed. “I already paid for you.”
Mary could see he was talking to himself, disappointed about something, but she didn’t quite understand the context. “Why am I too big?”
“Quite an annoyance. Hurry up and come. Perhaps I will find another use for you.”
Mel gripped her arm. “Don’t go. Mary, this is your world. I know you don’t feel like it, but there’s nothing he can offer you except death.”
The darkin growled low, a feral dog ready to attack.
Mel released her spastically. He made a noise in his throat between a moan and a cry. “Mary—” he begged.
Mel’s fear seemed to transfer, snapping her back to her senses. “No. I don’t want to go.” She stiffened herself, pulling to her full height; barely diaphragm-high on the lanky green creature. “Why do you stalk me?”
“I bought you. You irritate me. Come now, or else.”
“Bought.” Slavery? The word stopped her. Something told her she should fear the word, but she didn’t. At the same time, she felt no desire to be part of it. The concept had never crossed her mind.
When the over-sized creature moved, he blurred with speed. Surprise delayed her reaction until his iron grip tightened around her wrist. Spindly though they might look, darkin were solid muscle. Mary had never lost in a game of strength or stamina. She won wrestling tournaments with hardly any effort, yet she couldn’t move within the darkin’s long-fingered grip. The bones crushed together painfully, sending her to her knees.
With hardly a movement, the darkin yanked her and the last earthly sound she heard was Mel’s scream.
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