12Chapter Eleven
"Desert Arachnid?" Baldy asked before remembering he'd forgotten something. "My lord,"
"Fitting, I think." Lordy commented. "It came from the desert sand and struck like the desert breed of arachnids."
After that, Baldy spoke no further.
Thanks to the uninteresting opaqueness of the walls surrounding me, I could not see what any of the Catrions were doing yet I knew they'd done something; the physical properties of the liquid were changing. With the decline of conversation among the Catrions came the thickening of the liquid I was in. No longer would the liquid I was suspended in tingle the multitudinous goosebumps on my bare flesh like slimy, grimy motor oil; it was turning into a sludgy gel.
Distressed by the diminishing freedom of motion, each of my limbs, tail included, paddled through the goo. Movement, I found, was still possible though strenuous.
It came upon me so fast, I thought the ability to move had been a mere illusion; abruptly my limbs froze in place. An electric current had silenced my every kinetic exhortation. Fighting the electric current was useless; every attempt to do so only resulted in agony. To my dismay, every muscle in my body was locked where it had been the moment the current killed my kinesis.
The inability to even twitch my eyes was painful although it wasn't because of a neural response to triggered nerve endings. I was in pain because I was frustrated and afraid. Total paralysis wasn't an ordeal one easily coped with.
Seconds were hours, hours were days, and time was mortally obese. For all I knew, I had been imprisoned in my inability to move for decades—if not centuries—before the electricity abated.
When I finally felt the electric current stop, I couldn't tell if the substance I was in was still gelatinous or if it had reverted to its initial state of being; my muscles were so tight and spasmodic from too long a period of inactivity for me to recognize the degree of resistance they met.
Sheer exhaustion forced me to abandon my futile attempt to contemplate my surroundings. Sighing into the oxygen mask, I slipped into a deep slumber.
Some time later, I was looking at a two-dimensional computer display. I didn't understand what I was seeing but deep-rooted in my memory banks was the knowledge of how to interpret the code in front of me. Relieved to find manipulating the on-screen data came naturally to me, I watched the effects of my changes on the endless spiraled ladder. Alarmingly, the screen flashed twice; the genetic material of the specimen I was working on had rejected my changes.
I tried again. The outcome was the same. My third attempt, even using a simpler modification, had an identical conclusion.
How the genetic material of this particular specimen could combat my attempts to rewrite the protein sequences was a mystery to me. The only possible reason why the specimen was impervious to every change I attempted was that the genetic code of the specimen had already achieved perfection; it wouldn't likely mutate or evolve unless for several generations to come it was paired with beings that had the same alterations. For the first time ever, there was nothing I could do to rewrite the genetic code of a human, a species usually more malleable than others. A curious intuition of mine suggested the Animal was just the same…
I had no idea how long I'd been asleep; all I remembered about the time I'd spent sleeping was that I'd dreamnt about DNA. The more I concentrated on the details of the dream, the fuzzier they became.
At first glance, everything was as it had been prior to my excursion from consciousness. The liquid I was in was once again truly a liquid; as I stretched my stiff, sore muscles, I realized the liquid was more illuminated than before.
The cause, I found was that there was a second band of light on my right. As with the first light, the new light shined on the back of a human figure; the light trickled around the still silhouette to my sensitive pupils.
For a few minutes, I had to squint at the neighboring human form to learn anything about it other than it too was unclothed. Without looking in a southerly direction, I concluded the body was male; the short combed hair and the flat unremarkable chest was proof enough. Obscured by the angle of the lifeless body in relation to my own, the face pointed away from me. Still though, the peculiar shape of his earlobes made me think I knew the person's identity.
I did! It was Alaric! All I had to do was nudge his shoulder with my tail to realize he was him.
My gentle push did more than supply a name to the person; Alaric stirred the moment I touched him. Shaking the confusion from his head, looking around, and then fixing his eyes on me, he appeared somewhat relieved. His eyes smiled, surprising me because I'd never seen him happy in my presence, but then they strayed from their position in line with my own. I watched them slide beneath my chin, hover, and then dart lower.
At first, I figured Alaric had never seen a girl before, and that he would stop studying my body momentarily. When his gaze only shifted to reexamine my upper half, I tried to shrug it off. Almost fine with his behavior given the circumstances, I merely scowled.
That all changed when I caught in the corner of my eye, an X-rated organ giving me a standing ovation. It was bad enough that we were in an already humiliating and dehumanizing situation but he really didn't have to get so aroused. Had my tail not intervened, Alaric might have continued staring; angry for me, my tail snapped at his face.
The resulting purple welt on his upper cheek was an improvement on the vile features of the ugly, ugly boy.
After quite a long time, Alaric mustered up the courage to turn back around. Apologetic, though not nearly enough so, he scratched the back of his neck, nodded at me, and twirled back to the position my tail had left him in.
Satisfied, I returned to my exploits, which were needless to say, nothing in particular. Actually, that was only partly true; I found myself doing some soul searching.
It was all my fault. My friends and I were prisoners on a Catrion ship and I was responsible for it. We would probably never see our families again and we would be lucky to survive. As if that weren't bad enough, the Catrions weren't exactly treating us like welcome guests; my own misery plus the hopeless situation extinguished every last trace of happiness. Because of me, my friends and I were being held hostage by the enemy in a war that ended before I was born; something told me they were holding a grudge against humanity.
The image of me dangling from the wires that had been connected to the numerous Dragonflies as well as fragments of my most recent dream flashed in my head. "Take the Desert Arachnid away. I have no use for it at this point."
"Yes, Lord Nosamar," I'd not heard this voice yet; with only three words to base my opinion off of, I didn't know very much about the conscience behind it other than that it obeyed orders.
"Don't bother restraining it again," Lord Nosamar commanded. "I'm curious what it will do if it isn't held in place."
"Yes my lord," All of a sudden, this voice sounded as if it was trying to hide an overwhelming sense of panic.
The liquid began to gel again only this time I discovered I couldn't test the viscosity of the congealing fluid; every cell in my body ached with drowsiness. Forcing my eyes to stay open, however difficult, was my purpose in life at that moment; I longed to know as much as I could about the space ship I was on.
Behind me, a slurping, sucking sound sang sonnets of sealed surfaces. Light poured into the tank from outside; I was vaguely aware of a nylon strap being pushed around my waist. A few seconds later, I felt another one wrapping around my frame.
Too exhausted to be certain how long it had taken for the Catrion to fish me out, I would've toppled onto the floor if gravity had been present. By the time I was free from the goop, I had two pairs of nylon straps clinging to my flesh thanks to the residual slime.
As I was floating freely in a microgravity environment, something had to be done with me, so at least a dozen Catrions took hold of me and brought me through many hallways and corridors. Eventually, the movement of the ceiling stopped and one-by-one, the Catrions released their grip and scurried away.
Seconds after the last Catrion let me go, a pneumatic hiss told me a nearby door was closed; the single beep that followed signaled the lock was working.
The effects of the sleep-inducing sludge lasted for a frustrating period of time. My head pressed against a hard wall and my neck bent painfully, I had to wait nearly three hours for any movement to come back to my arms, legs, fingers, and tail.
Now free of the strange fluid, I sighed over the absence of clothing. In the liquid, I could imagine I was taking a bath, but out in the open clothing-less locomotion was bothersome.
First, once I could move again, I explored the cabin I was in, searching for anything with potential usefulness. Unfortunately, the room I was in was bare; there wasn't even a door on the bathroom or a vacuum in the shower, as was standard on all spaceships. One wall had the remnants of a sleeping sack on it; only the brass eyelets which formerly held the sleeping bag were left. Opposite the wall perpendicular to the one the sleeping bag used to be on was a padded bench; the acrylic padding had deteriorated to almost nonexistence. Beneath the disheveled bench top was an empty chest, except for a botched trail of rat excrement. Another storage receptacle, a bookshelf and dresser combined on the partial wall adjacent to the bench, granted me good fortune.
Inside, beneath another dotted line of rodent fecal matter, was the cloth part of the sleeping bag. It was in pretty shabby condition but useable nonetheless. My hope was to fasten a piece of clothing from it in order to eradicate the queer nakedness.
I picked up the tattered cloth; full of holes, any covering the fabric could offer would be minimal at best. Upon lifting it, I noticed that beneath it was a fraying pleather belt with the fastening system turned off. Excited, I slung the material over my shoulder, tied the belt around my belly, and marveled at my newly-made toga.
Returning to my exploration of the room. It was actually two rooms, rather like a suite or small apartment. In the corner, the shower was shaped into a perfect sphere. Next to the shower was a cramped toilet stall. Around the apartment were the typical handholds found on spaceships; a few of them were broken away, leaving stripped bolts jutting from the walls. Overall, the spacious prison cell wasn't overtly inviting; it was fitting for the use the room had.
Settling down to wait for something else to happen, I discovered I didn't have to wallow in my guilt long.
It felt like only ten minutes had passed on the icy surface near the bench when a thumping clanging came from the air vent. To say I was scared was to put my state of being mildly. Thankfully, I had no need to worry, for the face that came through the portal was friendly.
A fiber glass sledgehammer tapped the grate out of place. I watched it clatter around, ricocheting of three walls and spiraling towards the room's entrance. After the sledgehammer emerged came the momentary forgetting of my sorrow.
Topless and clad only in ragged khaki shorts, Victor pulled himself headfirst out of the ventilation duct; I didn't wait for him to finish climbing out. Dashing as fast as my toga would allow, I struggled to keep my anatomy confidential (although technically it wasn't that private anymore since Alaric had seen my business).
Victor had barely freed himself from the ventilation duct when he found himself bound by my tight embrace. The poor fellow probably felt like he'd been pounced upon by a starving mountain lion.
"I can't tell you how happy I am to see you!" The truth was, I was happy enough to cry.
He chuckled in an odd sort of way. "I'm so glad you're alive," He was calm, serious but calm. "I haven't seen you since the attack; I thought the worst."
"You mean you've seen the others?" Excitement echoed in my shaky voice. "Tell me how Leroy's doing!"
Taken aback by my sudden urgency, Victor stammered out a response. "I-I don't know. I-I've only seen him once, and when I looked again, he was gone" Victor eased away from me. "He hasn't returned to the room he was in."
A wave of nausea bubbled over me. "W-was he okay—when you saw him, I mean?"
"H-he looked fine," Victor nodded. "But what about you?"
I collapsed back onto Victor's chest. "I'm sorry,"
His touch could only do so much, but the effect it had on my spirits was worth every ounce his microscopic cells had to offer. Feeling the pressure of his fingertips in my ribcage was a welcomed contrast to the cold numbness I'd gone through while submerged.
This time he spoke, his voice trembled like mine. "Don't worry about it; I'd rather be on an adventure with you than researching defunct technologies from the Stardust Conflict and waiting for class to end so we could skip our chores and hang out together."
It wasn't quite what I expected. His words were comforting in a way, although my preference at that moment involved hiding away , alone with Victor on his little island while an orange sun drifted beneath the faraway horizon.
"Thanks," I mumbled, still grateful for Victor's firm farm-boy pectorals.
Pretending my head pillowed by Victor's chest wasn't as abnormal as it felt, I let my arms continue to hug hum. In a way, it was sort of like when Victor and I would slack off on the shores of Lake Wannapeg; never were we this intimate, yet it wasn't unnatural for us to nap in our bottommost layer of clothing after a long swim, or for us to huddle close together on blustery autumn nights. Perhaps this was simply the next evolution of our companionship.
"Hey," Victor whispered in my ear. "Let's get you into some actual clothes."
"What," I whispered back; the thought never occurred to me that Victor might have real clothes. "That would be great,"
"Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes." Victor rubbed my arms as he leaned away from our hug. "Oh, and I don't know if you know this already, but if a strange watery liquid starts spurting out of the shower, don't stop it from touching your body. Aidyn and I think it's their way of nourishing us but all we really know for sure is that it's absorbed into our skin via osteoporosis."
"You mean osmosis?" I wondered, unsure of how the liquid might relate to the shrinkage of bones.
"Yeah! That!" He exclaimed. "I was never any good at science—Aidyn knew what it was." He shrugged. "But yeah, if the weird liquid doesn't make contact with any part of your skin, after a while, the bit it doesn't touch will become scaly and white. It's pretty gross actually."
I nodded. "Can I-can I come with you?"
Victor shook his head. "I'm sorry, but it's too big of a risk. The Catrions probably put you in your own cell for a reason, and I'm worried what might happen if they discovered you weren't here." The reluctance I heard in Victor's tone reassured me; he wasn't just telling me to stay put for no apparent reason although I didn't entirely understand his reason. I just knew he had one.
"I'll be right back, I promise." He kissed my forehead. "Just stay here, please."
Annoyed, I nodded my acceptance. "You better be right back or else."
Nodding, Victor untangled himself from my tail before leaving; it wasn't like I was helping him get free either.
With one last tentative peek over his shoulder, he clambered back into the ventilation duct. Disheartened, I slumped down next to the opening. Every second that passed twisted another knot into my already contorted stomach.
Sadly, so many seconds passed before Victor returned, my stomach deserved a Boy Scout merit badge. Even with my prolonged sense of times, hours had to have gone by.
Finally, Victor reappeared.
"What took you so long?" I hoped I didn't sound too rude; I prayed Victor interpreted my tone as teasing instead of demanding.
The tone of my voice didn't seem to matter; Victor was somber-faced well before I'd spoke. He tossed a rolled-up bundle at me, shook his head, and mumbled the reason for his distress.
"They're gone—all of them."
"Who's gone?" I asked, forgetting about the real clothes Victor had brought me; Victor's alarming expression was more important than how fashionable my attire was.
"Alaric and Nellya, and Aidyn too." Victor slouched on the bench as he spoke. "Aidyn was right, I should have tried to prevent the Catrions from getting to them instead of exploring the ship."
"They would've been taken anyways." I reasoned. "I mean, even I was experimented on." The moment the words rolled off my tongue, I knew they hadn't been the right thing to say; I was thinking about some stuff I'd read in the textbook that related to what we were going through.
During the Catrion War, the Catrions frequently abused their P.O.W.s by altering their DNA or testing the limits of human survivability. According to the textbook, the few survivors rescued from Catrion ships often recounted horror stories of the Catrions taking them or their fellow prisoners into strange laboratories where the prisoners endured all sorts of horrific tortures. Some of the less fortunate ones were used to test new Biospheres. Most however, were pricked and prodded into insanity; a commonality found in almost every prisoner's testimony was the interest Catrions had in sexual organs and unborn fetuses. There were also reports of forced pregnancies early on in the war, though cases in which a male prisoner was forced to rape a female prisoner were rare.
In all honesty, I didn't know what the Catrions were doing or even if they were picking up their old habits. Whatever they were doing though, Victor and I really couldn't be certain our friends were safe. We just prayed we'd see them again.
"You were taken?" Perhaps Victor's disheveled emotional state was the cause for his momentary lapse of memory. "What'd they do to you?"
"Well, basically," Honestly, I had no idea what they'd done. "I don't know exactly, but they made me feel better."
Where the inspiration for Victor's response had come from was as big a mystery as what the Catrions had done to me.
"You mean they got you high?" He plunged back into his former hopelessness.
"No, I, uh, I'm not sure how to explain it." Blaming the absurdity of Victor's response, I felt stupid for being unable to describe what it had been like. Trying to shake the feeling off, I did my best to clarify for him.
"They're probably fine—I saw Alaric before they brought me back here."
"He's not the one I'm worried about."
Victor's words weren't cold but they weren't very pleasant either. As a result, I found responding appropriately to be difficult.
"Nellya's a strong girl," I whispered.
He just stared at me; we both knew Nellya wasn't the focus of his angst either.
For several minutes, he and I just stared at each other. Realizing how needed my services were, I kicked off from the wall behind me, floated across the room, and situated myself next to him. To help comfort him, I wrapped my arm (and tail) around his shoulders and leaned my head against him.
Our silence rang for quite a while afterwards.
When we finally started chatting again, it was me who started the conversation.
"Apart from crawling around ventilation conduits, what've you been doing?"
"What?" Victor's head jerked up. "Oh, I've been exploring the ship through the air circulation systems and emergency access tunnels."
"What inspired you to climb into a dusty ventilation duct in the first place?"
Victor repositioned himself on the bench. "After we were abducted, I was the first to wake up and so I started looking for a way out. The air vent in the room we were in was already missing so I just climbed in to take a look." He took a breath. "Then almost as soon as I'd pulled my ankles through the hole, the Catrions came in and began tagging Aidyn, Nellya and Alaric."
"Tagging?" This was deeply fascinating. "What do you mean?"
"On their ankles, they put a plastic bracelet with a number on it." Victor had me captivated. "When Aidyn woke up, she and I figured the Catrions forgot about me because I didn't get numbered."
"I didn't get numbered," I muttered, not meaning to contradict Victor. It was just that I certainly hadn't been overlooked.
"I'll have to think about that," Victor mumbled. "It doesn't make sense, at least according to what Aidyn and I reasoned."
Victor's doubts weren't something I could easily comment on.
"It doesn't really matter now though," He sighed.
"Don't say that!" I was appalled at how fast Victor had given up hope.
"No really," Victor cut me off before I could encourage him. "Now isn't the time to wallow in despair. We should be helping the others."
"What?" The sudden change of face startled me.
"I'm going to see if I can find our weapons so we can keep them nearby until we're ready to strike." Victor mused. "You'll probably want to keep whatever I can get you hidden though. Who knows if we'd ever get our stuff back if the Catrions caught us with it."
I nodded, pretending I understood as well as him.
"That reminds me," Victor turned his head intuitively. "If you ever decide to change into those clothes, then it might be best not let the Catrions see them either. I'd be willing to bet they would do whatever they could to catch us."
Embarrassed that the clothes Victor had given me were sleeping untouched in my lap. To hide my shame, I smirked. It was the only way I could find to conceal my embarrassment.
"Y-you're probably right."
Victor smacked his lips together and nodded once. Stay here, I'm going to look for more stuff."
Not exactly eager to comply, I protested. "Wait, why do I have to stay here?!" The way I saw it, staying meant a guilt-ridden anticipation of the Catrions.
"Well, if you stay here, you can't be wherever the Catrions would take you." I smiled at Victor's pitiful attempt at humor. Victor didn't seem to be satisfied by my weak smile yet he accepted it.
Right as Victor was about to leave, he reconsidered; he came back to me, took my hands, and gently squeezed. "You'll be fine and I promise to check in every two hours." Nothing Victor could say would calm my nerves as he left.
And so, I waited. For the first term of Victor's absence. I tried various tactics to pass the time, but all of them left me bored and uninterested.
Victor had brought me a fluorescent pink swimsuit top and a pair of denim carpenter shorts. Further inspection of the shorts revealed they weren't mine or even designed for my gender. Touching my shins, the bottom hemline was icy metal; I only had shorts but the half zipper indicated these shorts could become pants. Although they weren't mine, I recognized the familiar location of the pockets. Like most pairs of carpenter pants, the pockets and straps were positioned within reach of my hands, particularly my right, although the improper fit put the pockets just beyond my finger tips. The familiarity of the pocket pattern was a welcome reminder of the world I'd left, the world I'd loved.
My father had three pairs of carpenter pants; two were made of a durable khaki and the last pair was dulled denim with brown residue on the knees from the days he spent on Mars. I had always liked that pair of jeans of his. They were a symbol of my father's love for me.
Way back when I was a kid, no older than six or seven, my father took me on a special trip to the moon's capital city, Luna. At the time, I was afraid because of the gravity variance between Earth and the Moon. To calm me down, my father promised that if I held his hand and the twisted strap on his pants leg, he and I wouldn't be separated.
Thinking of Admiral Lygre Griffin and the promise he'd given his tailed daughter, I curled my fingers around the same strap on the shorts I wore.
By the time Victor returned, my knuckles ached from the tight hold I had on the twisted strap. Victor's eyes followed my arm down past my hip to my slightly bent thigh where my hand was clenched on a strip of sewn cloth.
"Are those clothes okay?" Victor wondered as he approached. "I couldn't find much that looked like it would fit you."
I nodded. "They're fine, but what do you mean you couldn't find much?" I was confused that he'd had to look for clothes to fit me when the pink top I had was obviously mine; I was under the impression Victor had found my travel bags. "All the clothes I packed fit me."
"Yeah, but the stuff I found seems to be in no apparent order." Victor scratched his head. "It's just a random assortment of various things. Some of it is ours, most of it isn't."
"Strange," I muttered. "It doesn't make sense for our stuff to be separated like that."
"The only thing I can figure is that the Catrions were sorting through our stuff, maybe looking for something." He didn't know any more than I did; I heard the uncertainty quiver in his voice.
"But you said there didn't seem to be any order in the stuff you found." I commented. "If they were sorting our stuff, wouldn't there be some sense to it?"
Victor, frustrated by his ignorance, sighed. "There might be some sort of arrangement but I don't know what it is."
"What do you know?" I wondered. "Not that I'm insinuating you don't know anything." The second statement came when I realized how condescending my question could have sounded.
"Not much, I'm afraid." His morbid disposition portrayed the depravity of his message.
Unsure of what other option was available to me, I gently hugged him. As id the same mind controlled us both, we patted each other's back and drew apart.
"I-uh-I think I should be going. The longer I stay, the longer it will take to find what we need." Smug and afraid, Victor kicked off the nearest wall and cast me one final glance before vanishing once more the way he'd come.
I was alone yet again.
My apologies for being so long in the updating and also for this chapter not being up to par. It needs some tweaking, but not nearly as much as the chapters to come, so I can accept this one how it is. I'll perfect it eventually, so I'm not worried; this is just a draft after all.