Page 26 of Defiance (The Intersolar Union #7)

Something small, wet, and chilly pressed against my forehead, droplets of water riding down my temples to nestle in the shells of my ears. I flinched, turning my head sideways so the water wouldn’t drip into my ear canal.

“Where…”

My voice was gravel, and when I tried to open my eyes, they felt like I’d rubbed sand directly into my corneas. My eyelids pried open like rusty doors.

Someone tsked above me.

“That advenan’s bite gave you an awful fever, dear,”

Guei murmured in a soothing, low tone.

“It’s my fault. I should have pulled you aside, yes? Ferulis has always been reckless, but an advenan without a merit collar…”

A frown pinched her wide, thin mouth.

“He should be held accountable, putting you in such danger.”

Novak didn’t bite me at the party. I wasn’t falling for that. I rolled to my side, head pounding. I was on a clinic table with a thin white mat, my elbow crushing through the cushion into the hard steel beneath as I propped myself up. A drumbeat of pain squeezed my head. That icy wetness seeped into my hairline and temples, easing the intensity.

“Where’s Novak? I want to see him,”

I slurred.

Guei smiled like the Mona Lisa, full of secrets and allure. She gave my trembling fist a pat, rubbing her thumb over my wrist.

“Lay back down, Charlotte. I need to measure the bite, hmm? You should rest before your long journey.”

All it took was a gentle nudge, and I rolled back on my shoulder blades, winded. I was just so heavy.

“There… Much better.”

Guei tapped my cheek with motherly affection, humming as she drew down my blanket. I was naked, I realized. My dress was gone. My hair was loose. I looked over at her table and saw the ties and pins I’d used in it laid out like surgical tools on a small silver tray, like she was cataloging me.

Ice shot down my spine and a holoscreen beeped to Guei’s right. She glanced at my elevated vitals and muted them. Then the weight on my limbs grew, as if I were being sucked down into the table like a magnet to a fridge. The mat compressed around me with a plas crinkle.

“Why are you doing this?”

I asked, finding it hard to take full breaths. My esophagus felt wrong. My ears popped. I could breathe fine but felt like I shouldn’t be able to.

Guei took a snap of my breast, then measured the distance between the pink pinpricks Novak’s fangs had left amidst my pale freckles.

“Well, isn’t it always power? Humans are a gamechanger, after all. Best to get in at the starting line,”

she mused, carefully logging her measurements. She winked once and a blue filter slid over one of her large black eyes.

“Pink, colorimetric y 0.2 by x 0.4. I always guess visible colors incorrectly, yes. Did you know, we hjarna thought humans were orange and red when we first saw you? The other species still tease us for it.”

She chuckled as if we were enjoying a cup of tea.

“A gamechanger?”

I breathed, on the brink of panic. Lucidity returned to me in tiny drips. It had happened. I’d really been taken.

According to plan.

I trusted Novak to find me. Whether I’d be in one piece when he did…

Focusing on Guei was better than focusing on myself. I watched her and wondered if Jharim’s parumauxi were watching too. Had they activated? Would I know? Something whirred and clunked beyond my eyeline.

“Would you like to hear a story, Charlotte? To pass the time during start-up, yes.”

“By all means,”

I said, using bluster as a crutch.

“Give me my James Bond moment.”

The reference went right over her head.

“When hjarna first considered forming the Union, we knew of many species in nearby systems, yes? This part of the galaxy is dense. But we only considered two species for our first partnership. Venandi, hmm… And humans.”

I turned my face to look at her and the table dragged down on my cheek. I pulled my face upright and stared at the ceiling, lost for words.

“Most other species engage in battles of physical dominion. Wars. Enslavement. The first time ancient hjarna observed this in other species, we were horrified. The prevailing theory for centuries was that it was a genetic mutation, the natural end to evolution. Until those species kept living, yes? Thriving, even. Reaching their fingers out into their own solar systems, just like we were. It defied imagination back then.”

Guei pulled the blanket off my naked body and folded it neatly. My nipples puckered in the cold air.

“I’m having a hard time believing hjarna don’t hurt each other.”

She brushed her fingers through my hair.

“Not like you,”

she murmured, skimming my scalp. She traced my eyebrows and the peach fuzz along the tops of my ears, relaxed and confident. She owned me, and wherever she was sending me, whatever she’d done to Novak, she was confident that I’d never be found.

“Reaching out terrified our ancestors, but it was inevitable. If they reached us before we reached them…”

I swallowed and she pressed her palm into my throat to feel my esophagus bob, like a mountain lion suffocating a deer in its jaws.

“Well, we needed to be first, didn’t we?”

She picked up one of my ties and stretched it between her fingers. Collecting my hair in her palms, she started to play, dividing it into familiar sections. She stared at a holoscreen behind my head, learning how I plaited it each day with methodical precision.

“We chose the two most aggressive species to approach first. Very clever, winning over the biggest predator in the woods, yes? Our choice of the venandi was pure logistics. The Orbidae system is closer than the Solar system. But humans would have made excellent partners. You’re ruthless, creative, tribal… Impressionable, too.”

Guei finished plaiting my hair with a self-satisfied hum, then untied it once more, getting to her feet. She smiled down at me, leaning in close to whisper in my ear.

“Humans will Awaken and become a guardian species within decades, yes? Not centuries like the shilpakaari. You’ll have your own seat on the council. You’ll have power. All someone needs to take hold of it is a little creative thinking and determination.”

The sound of bare feet crossed the floor and I strained my eyes to see who it was. My vision shook, unable to believe who greeted Guei by rubbing her hands and smiling warmly.

“Protocols complete,”

the vision of myself said in my same Mayo accent like she’d been born on the isle herself. She was nude with hair that was straighter than mine, hanging around her waist like she was fresh from the salon blow-dry.

“It’s such a pleasure to see you again, Chairwoman Guei, and such an honor to meet my originator.”

Guei turned her around without acknowledging her and plaited her hair with care. She looked exactly like me, minus my scars and frayed cuticles. The fine laugh lines around my eyes crinkled around hers. She had the same sporadic white hairs on the left side of her hairline, shining like silver thread in the clinical overhead lights.

“The scars on your stomach?”

Guei asked me, spiraling the braid into a low bun.

“Had part of me intestine removed,”

I lied instantly.

Guei’s smile wasn’t so warm anymore. She tucked the ends away and secured the doll’s hair with a pin like she was performing surgery.

“The removal of your uterus, then. Remember that,”

she told the doll.

“Of course. I should also mark a scar on the bottom of my chin. I remember cracking it on the handlebars of a bicycle. And my thumb from a fishing hook.”

“You remember things?”

I asked in horror. The doll met my eye and smiled.

“Yes. Long term memories are embedded in your living code.”

“Do you remember the advenan biting you?”

My doll’s expression shuddered. She swallowed hard and nodded.

“It was terrifying. I can’t believe Chairman Ferulis entrusted my safety to him.”

“Get tossed!”

I snarled, fighting against the table and quickly running out of energy. The harder I tried to lift my arms, the harder it pulled me down.

“Excellent.”

The chairwoman ignored me and lifted a tool about the size of a pen. She handed it to my doll and withdrew an empty aero-syringe from a drawer.

“Make sure to look Charlotte over carefully, yes?”

she instructed.

“Of course.”

My doll lifted up the pen Guei had given her, arm moving in calculated, inhuman stokes like the claw in a carnival machine. She pressed the tip to her breast right where Novak’s fangs had left their mark, and bright red blood slid down the swell, dripping to her feet. It wasn’t a pen. It was a laser scalpel, the tip vibrating with red light. She did the same to her stomach and chin with a vapid smile.

When Guei’s fingers wrapped around my chin, I gasped, mesmerized by the horror of watching myself cut into my own flesh. She held up the aero-syringe, now full of a clear liquid and pressed it to my neck.

“Safe travels,”

she cooed.

There was a gentle rush of air.

Then fire consumed me from the inside out.