Page 24 of Resolution
She had no idea how long it was before the flyer began to descend and landed at their destination. The aliens freed her from the straps and released her ankles but she was too weak from the stun shot to walk so she was carried out of the flyer and into the fading daylight. Taking in her surroundings, she saw snow capped mountains all around which meant she was now in the far north. The chill in the air emphasized that point. Her captor carried her off the landing pad and toward a sprawling one story building with a camouflaged roof. They were inside a moment later and he set her on her feet.
“You need to walk,” he said.
Leaning on him although she’d rather not, Melly walked through the gleaming corridor, ignoring curious glances from passersby. There weren’t many and all were of the alien race, as evidenced by their pale pink hair and distinctive facial features. In the distance she heard screams but her body was too traumatized from being stunned recently to react to the stimulus. Her escorts turned at a junction of corridors, entering a less stark area, walking now on a lush carpet. The walls were wood paneled and there was artwork—alien landscapes and vistas.
Her escort and the man accompanying them halted at a fancy wooden door inscribed in glowing red script in the alien language. He spoke into a com, glancing at her anxiously and didn’t seem too happy when the door opened. Grabbing her elbow, he all but dragged Melly inside, his associate following. This was an antechamber although there was no one at the small desk. The man holding her didn’t pause but went straight to the next door, gave a cursory knock, took a deep breath and crossed the threshold as soon as the door opened.
A huge, gleaming black stone desk was set across the room and another alien sat in an ornate red and gold chair, drumming his fingers on the polished surface. Wearing a white jacket festooned with badges and pins, he had towering red hair, a few strands so bright they gave off a faint glow. He stared at Melly so eagerly she recoiled and dread pooled in her gut. As he examined her in her disheveled debilitated state, a frown came over his face.
The man and the ones who’d brought her engaged in a short, sharp conversation, during which Melly was thrust into an uncomfortable chair in front of the desk and held here by her guard’s hand clenched painfully on her shoulder.
The person in charge rocked in his chair, steepled his fingers and regarded her dubiously. “So you’re one of those humans.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The troublemaking kind, the ones who resist and fight and scheme. I’ve had experience with your kind before.” He harrumphed and Melly inferred things hadn’t gone well for him, which lit a small spark of good cheer in the middle of her despair. “You’ll find I run a disciplined lab here and I don’t tolerate rebellion.”
Too bad for you. Immediately she decided to be the worst prisoner he’d ever encountered.
“Nothing to say?” he asked, plainly disappointed she wasn’t going to verbally joust with him and allow him to show off his superiority.
A large, fluffy gray and white cat ran into the room, jumping on the desk and rubbing itself against the man’s arm. Melly recoiled, staring at the purring feline. The alien guffawed, a gravelly annoying sound.
“My people don’t keep pets as a rule,” he said. “Unlike you humans who take animals with you everywhere. This fact made cats a perfect vector to spread the virus in the beginning. You coddle them, feed them, have them on your spaceships—if one of you finds a cat in the wild, you attempt to help it. All points we counted on when selecting them to transmit the virus efficiently.” He scratched the cat’s head and it flopped onto the desk, eyes slitted with pleasure. “It was easy to release a good number of infected cats close to outlying settlements. But of course the cats had the last laugh as you humans say. They no longer carry the deadly form of the virus. It’s mutated in felines to become benign which would make an interesting area of study if we had the time. But the humans already infected do an admirable job of spreading the disease now. But even if Mflorre here was a vector and bit you, or if one of the human infected got their hands on you, you wouldn’t succumb. Not to the virus anyway.”
“I’m immune?”
He nodded. “You have an extremely rare set of genes and fragments and markers. We knew a few humans would have immunity no matter what we designed. The Watchers as I’m told you call them, have as one of their duties to seek out and identify such people and hold them from harm until we can come to collect them. You kept slipping away, however, until now. General Quantike earned himself a nice bonus, finding you.”
With a sinking heart, she tried to take it in. “So that’s what you want me for? To try to break the code I carry?”
“Yes. The initial phases of the project will be quite minimally painful, I assure you. Of course at some point we’ll have a new virus to test on you and then your time will be over.” He frowned again and glared at the man holding her seated. “But between the idiots at Glastine and these fools, you’re not in optimal condition to use as a baseline for testing. Drugs and stun beams were expressly forbidden, yet my orders were violated.”
“She tried to escape, Dr. Ybidliuz,” the guard protested. “She could have crashed the flyer, opening the hatch in midair. We had no choice.”
“We’ll discuss this later.” The scientist was haughty. “I’ll give you a week, Dr. Jericho, to rest and regain maximum viability as a specimen. In the meantime you can earn your keep working with Dr. Mercattor.”
The name was vaguely familiar to Melly and she wracked her brain for who the person might be. “The head of the human research facility?”
“The same. Our colleague.” He laughed in an unpleasant manner. The cat meowed and jumped off the desk, rubbing against Melly’s legs before trotting out of the room. “Not that a mere human could ever hope to approach the level of science where I operate.” He waved one long fingered hand. “Take her to Rivia’s domain. I have no desire to see her again until a week from now when she needs to appear in my lab healthy.”
The guard yanked Melly to her feet. She was glad to be leaving the alien scientist’s presence and grateful for the one week reprieve from whatever it was the man planned to do to her. During the time she’d have to try hard to escape. And maybe Jeff will find me before the seven days are up. Hope was a tiny ember, warm in her chest as they headed into the antechamber and then the corridor and made their way into a new area of the building.
This wing was sealed off and guarded but once she passed the security desk, the place seemed deserted. She was hurried along until they reached another office, much less ornate than Dr. Ybidliuz’s. Entering with only a cursory knock, her escort pushed her into a chair and spoke harshly to the woman behind the desk.
“The new prisoner. Special case, to be safeguarded at all costs. Dr. Ybidliuz wants her to rest for a week before he begins his new protocol and you’re to oversee her care. She’s a doctor too so he wants her to work with you. Anything happens to her, you’ll suffer, understand?”
Dr. Mercattor was a slender human woman with her brown hair caught in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, nails bitten to the quick and a nervous tic in her left eyelid. She surveyed Melly and said, “From her scruffy appearance she’s had things happen to her already.”
“Drugged. Stunned. Maybe roughed up a little,” the guard admitted. “She tried to crash our flyer.”
Rivia eyed her with raised eyebrows. “Impressive. I’ll tolerate no such misbehavior here, let me warn you. What we’re doing is too important.”
“Working to annihilate the human race?” Melly said, injecting as much scorn into her voice as possible.
“Doing genetic engineering research so far beyond your comprehension?—”
“Yeah I heard the identical line of bologna from the head guy not five minutes ago. Spare me. How can you betray your own kind like this?”
