HASH: Human Alien Species Hybrid (10 page)

Uneasy and scared, I came to terms with accepting what Aric asked me to do. When I did, I felt energy like nothing I had felt before. My body was floating, my eyes were closed yet I could see, through the vibration from the wall to the implant, I could see what he could see—I could see through the eyes of Aric’s father.

The screen in front of him showed the ship breaking the surface of Earth’s atmosphere. Fire and warmth brushed my face, as if I were there. The ship was falling fast and then at his side was his wife with Aric in her arms. He was three years old, scared like I had been.

“Are we going to make it?” his mother asked his father. Fear in her eyes, yet the same adoration for her husband that I had seen in my mother’s eyes for my father.

“We’ve lost control, Adalee. Get back to your seat and buckle in before the impact.”

“The beacon. Can we send the signal?”

“It was destroyed from the fire upon entry. We have our own. They will sound off.”

“They may be too weak. Atlas, please, we have to get to the beacon.”

“I will go, if you get back to your seat and buckle in.” Atlas removed his seatbelt and stood up, walking against the slant of the falling ship.

“Our people.”

“Adalee, buckle in now before it’s too late!”

I watched her run from the room, but the ship tilted and she began to fall backward, grabbing a control panel near her. I wanted to scream and tell her to get in the seat.

My eyes moved from the screen of Earth below and back at her toddler in her arms. My body began to gyrate and as I glanced back at the screen, I saw our red car, a tiny blip on the road.

Aric’s father tried to maneuver through a small control room to get to the beacon switch but the room burst out in flames, catching him on fire. His screams were deafening and my heart was racing.

I watched him drop to his knees at the same time the ship crashed against Earth’s soil. Adalee was ripped from the control panel and flew straight past Atlas’s burning corpse. She dropped Aric, almost setting him down easily on the ship’s floor as she was thrown through the front of the shattered ship.

Aric rolled forward until he hit his head on a control panel wall and lay there unconscious. His father lay on the floor, engulfed in flames. The metal organism on his arms and back released him and seeped into the vent, bonding with the ship.

I pulled my hand away and gasped for air. Aric threw his arms around me and held me tightly. I could feel his body trembling. I could hear his sobs.

“My parents. That was them. That’s what happened. We were there, we saw it all.”

Tears ran down my cheek. They were absorbed into his shirt. I didn’t know what to say. My parents were killed at the same time. But today, I saw the events from a different perspective. This time, I felt like the daughter of the Ceren parents. This time, I cried for them and for Aric. I cried with him because I understood his pain.

“Hey, guys,” Em said, “I hate to break up this party and although it’s great to see you two embrace like that, I think we should go. I’ve jammed the door locks, but they’re being creative out there. They’ll be inside this room in four minutes, if my calculations are correct.”

Aric put out his hand. “We’re coming.” His eyes, red and glazed, stared down into my face. “All these years in the same facility and we grew up alone.”

“We have each other now.”

His face turned from hurt to anger. “These people will not contain us any longer. Dr. Stevens set up our escape—she gave her life for it—so we’re going to escape.”

“What about the ship? What about our DNA? What about the cloning?”

“The ship is secure; it won’t give out any information except to a Ceren Royalty. We can come back for it.”

“If they destroy it?”

“Oh, they won’t do that. This ship has answers to many of their questions.”

“The DNA?”

“We don’t have time. More than likely, without certain genetic coding from our planet, the subject would destroy itself before it would reach puberty.”

Em poked her head through the doorway. “Let’s go! Two minutes and counting!”

We left the same way we’d come in, moving through hallways and sliding around corners, using the radios and security monitors to stay one step ahead of the guards. Before we knew it, we made it to the lab and started toward the exit.

There were at least half-dozen guards nearby, all standing alert as they watched the air ducts for signs of movement. We needed a distraction to get them to move away so we could proceed. If we went back, we’d run into other guards. So, our best approach was an offensive one.

I found myself thinking of the impersonations Em used to do of Dr. Stevens. “Em, can you put a message across their radios?”

“Easy.” She smiled. “I think I know what you have in mind.” Her voice changed, and it was strange to hear Professor Ahern’s voice coming from her. “This is Professor Ahern. Subject H and Subject A have escaped, along with Subject H’s potentially dangerous mental entity. Their re-capture is your number one priority. They were last seen in the lower levels. All security personnel are to search for them there at once.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Now what?”

“I’ve cut the radio links now, so they won’t be countermanding the instruction.”

“Yes, but will it work?”

I got an answer to that question just a few seconds later, as the guards seemed to discuss something among themselves before turning and hurrying away. Apparently, they didn’t want to risk upsetting Professor Ahern, even when they already had a job to do.

We moved forward quickly, heading toward the next ducts. Aric had a strong grip on my hand and Em was right behind us. When we made it to another door, we stopped to let Aric open it.

Em tapped me on the shoulder. “Jade?”

“Hold on, Em.”

“Um, now, Jade.”

“What is it?” I looked around and got my answer. A slow-moving overweight guard. His comrades had left him behind. This time, he didn’t have a tranquilizer gun drawn. He’d pulled his pistol instead.

“You think you two are slick? I’m going to kill you,” he said as he stepped forward, leveling it at me. “I don’t care what the eggheads say. I’ll tell them that you tried to attack me. No one shocks me like that and gets away with it.”

My head whipped around and looked at Em. “That’s the guard you shoved your hand through and electrocuted.”

“It’s good to see your brain’s working at full capacity.” She smirked.

The guard took another step forward, and Aric stepped in front of me. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. Without the advantage of surprise, what chance did we have against someone with a gun? Someone who had been trained?

He didn’t get any further than that, because Aric flew toward the guard and collided with him. The guard flew backward and the gun was flung from his hand and landed ten feet from where they were. Aric picked him up and tossed him across the room, his strength far greater than anything I had ever seen.

Once Aric knew the guard was knocked out, he came over to me and I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him closely.

Em coughed pointedly. “This is nice, but…um…aren’t we trying to get out of here?”

Aric kissed me, of course. A long, slow, sweet kiss that had Em tapping an invisible watch impatiently on the sidelines. It also brought with it another flash of the stars, of ships and creatures, I didn’t understand. Another reminder that Aric wasn’t just some good-looking human guy who happened to have some unusual metal in his skin—another reminder that there were far more complicated things waiting outside the Institute.

Em had reached the eye-rolling stage by then. “Seriously, guys, any time today?”

Aric pulled away and I was left feeling dizzy and almost unable to stand up without my knees buckling.

“Finally. Now, how are we getting out of here?”

I shrugged. After managing to get this far with Aric, how hard could it be to escape from the Institute? “What about the escape tube in the storage area?”

Em shook her head. “It’s guarded now.”

“Other emergency exits?” Aric asked.

“There aren’t that many and they’re guarded, too.”

I got another camera flash of the Institute’s interior. Of guards at every exit, from the front doors to the tiny escape hatches dotted around the interior. There weren’t many.

“Maybe we could fight our way past them?” I suggested, with a glance toward Aric.

He nodded. “I’m willing to give it a try if you are.”

“We might have to.” Even as I said it though, I knew that it wouldn’t be a good option. Aric had speed and strength on his side. He’d been able to deal with guards when he’d been able to get close enough, but what if there was more distance between them? What if the guard had enough time to aim and shoot? We could both be dead before we got close to getting out. I couldn’t risk that. I couldn’t risk Aric like that.

There had to be another way.

“Em,” I said, “tell me everything you can about the Institute and its systems.”

“All at once?”

“All at once.”

This time, Em didn’t use her hands on my head. We were beyond that, I guessed. As suddenly as I asked, information flooded into me. More than I could have believed—as much as a whole research station could produce during my lifetime and more.

Where there was usually pain, I only felt a vibration of sorts and of course, the implant was moving.

I ignored most of the information. From the reports of my development to the research papers on alien materials, I forced myself to concentrate on the Institute itself, on its systems and procedures, on every scrap of information I could find that might tell us something.

I looked through automated fire procedures, evacuation handbooks, a grisly looking secret file on the protocols if the Institute’s secrets were likely to be revealed, one entitled “Destruction in the Event of Compromise” and…

“There you are, Jade, and Aric, too.” I spun as I heard Professor Ahern’s voice.

She stood erect with a whole team of guards around her. I thought I’d dealt with her.

“What? You didn’t think my men would check with me when they got apparently contradictory orders? That there wouldn’t be a manual override for the doors? But well-played on breaking the locks, Jade. The Institute thought that one through, too.”

“I hadn’t really thought that far,” I said.

“This is just as well. I like my emergencies easily contained. Now, I’d like to say that everything will be fine, but I think it’s all gone a little too far for that, don’t you?”

I nodded, smiling as an idea came to me. “Yes, it has, and I think you’ll find that some emergencies are more easily contained than others.”

I reached out through Em, and I set off every alarm in the building, all at once. I told the Institute’s computers that there was a fire, an earthquake, an alien invasion…whatever they needed to hear to set their safety measures in place. The scientists here had spent so long telling me that everything here was for my protection; well, now it really was going to be.

Sirens blared. Lights flashed. Without warning, a mix of foam and water started to spray from overhead fire containment systems. Aric shoved me aside as the guards opened fire, slamming into them and knocking several sprawling.

Professor Ahern made a grab for me. “You think that this is enough to stop me?”

I slapped her then, hard enough to send her to her knees. She deserved it and more. “No, but this is.”

I reached out for the Institute’s emergency systems. An electronic voice blared out. It sounded eerily similar to Em’s.

“Destruction protocol has been activated. This facility will be destroyed in fifteen minutes. All personnel must evacuate the Institute at once. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. I have wanted to do this for years.”

“Em? What was that last thing about?”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

Aric had three of the security guards down, out of the fight. Another two were trying to bring their weapons to bear on him…

Then the scientists arrived. Some of them walked. More of them ran. We were, after all, in the middle of their living quarters, and they had just been told that their entire base was about to explode. They surged out of their rooms, stumbling bewildered toward whatever exits they could remember. Did they know where they were going? Had the Institute ever held a fire drill?

I rushed to Aric, pulling him into the throng of people, ducking down behind them and pushing through them, putting the growing sea of fleeing figures between Professor Ahern and us.

Who would have thought that so many people could have worked at a place like the Institute? The corridors were packed as we pushed through, and somewhere behind us, I could hear Professor Ahern shouting for order. The blare of the alarms easily drowned her out.

“Quickly, Aric. We won’t have much time.”

Aric nodded and started to push his way through the crowd. With his strength, none of the scientists around us could stay in the way for long. Although we had to be careful, too.

I saw one scientist go down, and I thought I recognized her as the one who had taken me to Dr. Stevens—and saw her almost crushed under the weight of people trying to flee. The crowd swept us along before I could even decide whether to help.

No one seemed to care that Aric and I were there among them. In the chaos and the noise of the emergency systems, I wasn’t sure if they noticed us. How easy were we to pick out when in seconds, everyone was soaked to the skin by the fire suppression systems, half-blinded by the light from the alarms, and half-choking from smoke from electrical systems that Em seemed to be frying almost at random.

“I thought it would add to the sense of emergency,” she said when I looked over at her.

“I’m not sure it needs much more adding to, Em!”

Aric leaned in closely, having to practically shout to be heard over the alarms. “Which way?”

That was still the question. The bulk of the people would be heading for the main doors, but I could see that there were still too many guards there for comfort. The scientists didn’t seem to have remembered about the rest of the exits though, and we couldn’t afford to be the only ones heading for one of the other exits. It would make us too easy to pick off.

There was an easy solution for that, though.

“Quick,” I yelled. “Everybody this way. There’s an emergency exit through the storeroom.”

It shouldn’t have worked. Some scientists or others should have looked around then and seen that it was me. Either that or they shouldn’t have been able to hear me at all. Somehow, though, enough of them seemed to get the message, and the words rumbled out through the crowd of evacuating scientists.

I leaned in and told Aric, “The storeroom. There’s a way out through the storeroom.”

I looked back. Somewhere behind us, I thought I caught a glimpse of Professor Ahern, but she was too far back in the crowd by then. Even so, I kept pushing forward, half leading the crowd, half just surfing the tide of its movement.

We made it to the storeroom. No one seemed to wonder at the way the doors opened for us automatically. The fact that before I got there, it would have taken one of them with the right pass to do it was apparently less important than the need to get away. That was good. That made things simpler.

There were still a couple of guards there, of course.

“Stop!” one said, lifting a hand. “We’re not supposed to let anyone out.”

“But it’s an evacuation,” someone called from behind me. “The Institute is going to explode.”

“I need to check in with my boss,” the guard started to say, but by then, scientists were already starting to push past him. When his partner started to reach for his gun, I nodded to Aric. A second later, and the guard was unconscious while we pushed through to the exit with the rest.

With so many scientists pushing for space, it was hard to make it to the ladder. Aric cleared a path for me, though, and boosted me up onto it to climb just behind a researcher for whom I thought I’d probably answered some questions in the past.

I took care not to look up at her too much while I climbed. Instead, I glanced down a lot to where Aric was climbing below me, wanting to make sure that he was still there—wanting to be certain that I hadn’t somehow left him behind. Em, of course, floated along beside me like a genie rising.

“This is fun,” she said. “We’re finally going to get to see
outside
, Jade!”

I didn’t answer, but right then, I had to agree, that was an amazing thought. What wasn’t an amazing thought was having to climb this ladder. How long did it take to climb? Seconds? Minutes? It felt more like hours, with rung after rung above me, the pain in my back starting to seep back in with every step I climbed. After everything I’d been through, I wasn’t sure that I had the strength.

At least, I wasn’t sure until I felt Aric pushing me upward. Forcing me on from below.

“You can do this,” he called up. “Just keep climbing.”

Just keep climbing. He made it sound so simple. But maybe it was. Just one rung, and another, and…

When my head broke the surface, I gasped in the odd taste of the outside air. There was something so different about it, much less sterile as Aric pushed me up over the lip of the escape hatch, into the milling crowd of scientists, all apparently unsure what they should be doing next. I didn’t look closely at them though, because I was too busy looking around us.

It was the start of dusk and thankfully because the small amount of sunlight that was peeking over the mountain in front of us, singed my eyes. I had to squint against the sun—the sun that I hadn’t seen in sixteen years. I held my hand over my eyebrows to shield my eyes from the sun’s rays and gawked at the world in front of me.

A rocky beach spread out in front of us, while behind me, a rough-looking rise led up to a small building at the top. I could see the beach curving away around that rise on both sides, while just over a narrow strip of water, I could see a much, much larger shore.

“An island,” I whispered to Aric. “We’re on an island.”

We were, and even as I realized that, I saw the boat. Someone had dragged it up onto the stony shore, half covering it with a tarpaulin. Aric saw it at the same time I did. He must have thought the same thing I did, about the vehicle Dr. Stevens had promised would be waiting for us outside.

Aric grabbed my hand and we started through the crowd of scientist, pushing past them while the chaotic sounds around us of the alarms and people trying to talk to colleagues about the system crash filled the air.

The further away we got, the more scared I felt. Excitement and fear bundled together into a nice package of butterflies that were released in my gut. The sky was light blue, the water almost gray and patches of green grass and trees. Something I had never seen until I was taken to meet Aric for the first time. Until I stepped foot into the outdoor assimilated room.

The water was endless, the sky nothing like I remembered. But then, how much did I pay attention to the sky when I was three years old? I glanced back and noticed that the Institute was underground with a few ports that led to the inside. I suspected a ferry brought the workers over from the mainland and they lived on this island or in the Institute.

Either way, I wanted to get away from it. I wanted to see the world and absorb the life of people who were not in lab coats and who did not run tests on me. I wanted to be normal again.

As we ran toward the boat, a yellow flower caught my eye. I stopped Aric, leaned down and picked the flower. I needed to feel it between my fingers. I needed to smell its nectar.

Aric yanked the cover from the boat. Inside, there were a couple of small rucksacks, sitting on a map and what looked like a note.

We dragged the boat halfway to the water before anyone seemed to notice us. By then, it was too late, at least with Aric doing the dragging. In seconds, we had it in the water, floating away from the shore. Neither of us had been on a boat before, obviously, but it didn’t take much to work out how the small motor on the back worked.

The implant helped us with that.

I sat back, voicing my biggest fear. “Let’s just hope they don’t send anyone out after us.”

Sitting beside me, Em smiled. “Oh, they won’t.”