Manipulating Mikey (First Wave Book 8) (5 page)

“Training level permission granted,
Dr. Lauren Campbell.”

Mikey looked at her curiously and
was charmed by her mischievous grin.

“What’s the training level?” he
asked, not really caring as long as she was beside him.

Lauren waited until the door opened
then led him down a long hallway and into a dimly lit room. Mikey walked to the
clear glass wall, expecting the worst and was surprised to look out into a
massive urban mockup.

There were streets, stores,
apartments, and human looking dummies scattered throughout the large area
behind the glass.

“Look there,” Lauren said as she
pointed to where a hybrid team was practicing retrieval missions.

Mikey saw one of the women kneel
down to the ground and moments later he saw a line of fire rush from her
fingers, travel around the corner of the street, and land directly onto the
boots of an armed man hiding behind the building.

“Oh damn!” Mikey uttered as the man
stomped his boots and swore loudly.

Lauren laughed and gave True a
mental high five.

“She cheated. We’re not supposed to
use our abilities against one another when training, but that’s True and her
mate, Leif. She’s trying to help him get ready for mission status,” Lauren said
with a grin as she watched Leif walk into the middle of the street towards his
mate, voiding her flames as she giggled.

“Mission status . . . what the hell
is all this? How did she do that?” Mikey asked as he turned from the couple now
kissing in the middle of the street while their teams moaned and groaned at the
delay.

“That’s her ability. Most of us
hybrids have a particular ability that you easily discover when you’re young
which becomes more advanced once you’ve bonded with your beast, the parasite in
your brain that gives you enhanced senses and strength. It is also the conduit
that allows us to speak to one another’s mind along an energy path known as the
Shengari’,” Lauren explained before she switched to speaking to his mind.

“The beast is a sentient being that
lives in harmony and in sync with us. It isn’t dangerous or bad in any way, no
matter what those government idiots tried to tell you,” Lauren whispered
through his mind.

Mikey had more questions than
answers and felt a little overwhelmed.

“Is that why I could see the UFOs
when no one else could?” he asked, hoping this beast was the reason he was so
strange. He also hoped there was a cure.

Lauren nodded and smiled up at him.

“Yes, I believe that is your gift.
The ability to see through attempts at cloaking or hiding. We won’t know more
unless we do some basic tests,” she admitted.

Mikey snorted and shook his head.

“Great, someone hands out ‘gifts,’
and I get screwed with some lame ass ‘now you see me, now you don’t’ crap,” he
muttered.

Lauren laughed and laid a
comforting hand on his arm, unable to stop herself from finding reasons to
touch him and feel the energy surge between them.

“If it makes you feel any better,
most of our male hybrids have what we call passive abilities, while the females
have the aggressive. It was nature’s way of evening the odds between the
sexes,” she explained with a grin.

Mikey couldn’t help but get lost in
her eyes as he took her hand in his own.

“What is your gift?” he asked
softly as his heart raced, and his pulse ran amok.

“I . . . I can see sickness and
injury in someone’s energy and can use my own to help them to heal,” she said
as she stared into his eyes.

Mikey heard the door handle begin
to turn and he jumped in front of Lauren, pulling her behind his back as he
faced the man in the doorway.

“Whoa, sorry. Didn’t know anyone
was in here,” Reven said as he tried to look behind the unfamiliar young man to
what or who he was hiding behind his back.

“It’s OK, Reven. I was just showing
Mikey some of our hybrids and how we train,” Lauren said as she came from
behind Mikey’s back to grin at the Valendran commander.

Mikey didn’t know why he felt so
irritated that the man was looking at Lauren, but he tried to hide it from them
by holding out his hand to Reven.

“I’m PFC Mikey Davis, sir,” Mikey
said as he stared up at the tall stranger. He couldn’t help but notice that Reven
also had the strange swirls in his eyes.

Reven nodded his head and grinned
at the kid as he shook his hand.

“I’m Reven Debreskii, one of the
Valendran commanders. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at any
time,” Reven said before he excused himself from the room, shutting the door
behind him.

Mikey turned startled eyes to
Lauren.

“What the hell is a Valendran?”

Lauren grinned and pointed at the
closed door.

“That.”

“Tells me nothing,” Mikey said as
he threw his hands up in exasperation.

Lauren giggled and took his hand in
her own before she opened the door and led them outside.

“I’ll get you a comm so you can
study our history when you’re up to it. For now, I’ll give you the crash
course. The Valendrans, like Reven, had an outpost on Mars over a thousand
years ago. The Relians, who are the enemies of all sentient beings, tried to
kill them and chased them here to Earth where they found mates and had
children,” Lauren explained.

Mikey felt like a light went off in
his head.

“Hybrids! So I’m half Valendran and
half . . .? Freak?” Mikey teased, knowing she didn’t like him calling himself a
freak.

Lauren playfully slapped at his
shoulder.

“Stop that, we’re not freaks. But
yes, your father must have been a Valendran or a hybrid of a Valendran in order
for you to have the beast in your brain. Hybrid is a mixture of Valendran and
human,” Lauren explained as she led them to the supply room.

They had more variations of hybrids,
but Lauren figured she’d try to get him used the Valendran ones before she
confused him with the complexities of the others. Grai and his brothers were
going to be really hard to explain.

“How many hybrids are there?” Mikey
asked.

Lauren led him through the rows of
shelves to where the tactical attire was kept. She figured since he was a
soldier, he might feel better wearing something similar, and she had to admit
she was a little curious what he would look like in the standard tactical team
gear.

Lauren spread her arms out and
grinned.

“I thought you’d like to wear
something besides those scrubs.”

Mikey looked around and smiled
broadly at her before he planted a loud, smacking kiss on her cheek.

“You’re an angel!” he said as he
walked over to a stack of black tactical pants from a shelf labeled in his size
and grabbed a pair.

“You need to write your sizes down
before we leave, and the supply clerk will have everything you need sent to
your room,” Lauren said as she watched him walk around the area choosing an
outfit.

When he went behind a rack of
clothes and she could hear him changing, she cleared her throat and turned her
head away even though she couldn’t see him.

“Anyway, to answer your question,
there are thousands of us. We find more all the time. Like you. Most end up
discovered and hunted either by the governments or the Relians. The rest of us try
to band together—not just for safety reasons, but because we’re trying to help
the humans,” Lauren said loudly, hoping to drown out the sound of him putting
his clothes on. She blushed when she noted that he didn’t pick any underwear.

“Help the humans how?” he asked as
he came around the corner of the shelf.

Lauren turned to him and sucked in
a sharp breath when she saw how he looked. The black, multi pocket pants fit
his narrow waist perfectly while the t-shirt molded to his chest and biceps
like it was painted on.

Mikey couldn’t help but smile at
the way Lauren was looking at him. This whole situation was strange enough as
it was, but knowing the attraction between them was mutual made him feel like
preening for her.

I will not make a fool of myself in
front of her,
he vowed to himself as he took a step towards her.
Then he promptly tripped over an untied boot lace and face planted on the
floor.

“Oh no!” Lauren uttered as she ran
to his side and gently turned him over.

Mikey wanted to hide from her after
embarrassing himself, but she was persistent and slapped his hands away from
his bleeding forehead.

“Grab that shirt from the shelf behind
you. You split open your head, so we have to get you to a medlab. Luckily,
there’s one down the hall,” Lauren said as she gestured to the clothes on the
shelf behind him while she held his wound closed with the other, using her gift
to slow the bleeding.

Mikey leaned back to get the shirt
and sucked in a breath as her body followed his so she could keep pressure on
his head, her face inches from his own.

“I think I have the bleeding
stopped,” Lauren whispered as she looked at his lips.

Lauren held her breath as the
energy roared to life between them. She saw the surprise in his eyes as he felt
the rush and waited expectantly as he lips moved slowly towards her own.

“Oh damn, you better get him to
medlab. I’ll get this cleaned up,” Simya, a Valendran tact team member, said
from behind them.

The startled couple quickly separated,
and Lauren stood while Simya held his hand out for Mikey and helped him to
stand.

“Thanks,” Mikey muttered, not
meaning it.

“Thanks, Simya,” Lauren said with a
shaky smile as she led Mikey from the room and down the hall to the medlab,
berating herself the whole way.

Why the hell did I want him to kiss
me?
She wondered.
Why do I still want him to do it?

“My head?” Mikey asked as he sat on
the exam table.

He wondered what she was thinking
that had her staring off and he couldn’t help but hope that she was thinking
about him and their missed kiss.

Lauren shook her head to clear it
and forced a smile.

“Sorry, I got distracted. Let me
see,” she said as she leaned forward to get a closer look at his deep gash,
hoping the wound would enable her to gain control of her attraction to him.

Chapter
Five

Mikey paced the room he was given
in the headquarters building of Freedom Enterprises, wondering where Lauren was
and when he would see her again. After repairing the deep gash in his head, she
had told him that Grai wanted him assigned a room in the building with the
other unmated males and traveling teams who were only stopping for rest on
their way to a mission or their home base.

He’d used the computer in his room to
access the history Lauren had told him was available to their hybrid children.
Although geared for the kids, it was an accurate history of their people and
how they came to be on the planet.

Mikey had no idea what the hell to
think about any of it. It all sounded so damn strange and more like a bad
science fiction novel than reality. But he couldn’t deny the things he’d seen
since he arrived and the people he’d met. It wasn’t just the ones who could
produce and throw fire or other projectiles at one another that had him
wondering, it was the information about the beast—better known to him as the
voice in his head.

He felt like he was on an emotional
roller coaster. One minute he felt sick that he had this thing in his head,
watching his every move and seeing everything like a sick peeping tom that he
could never get rid of. The next minute he was flexing his muscles in awe of
the strength and power he felt flowing through him because of the voyeur in his
head.

It sounded crazy even to him, but
he felt like bonding with that thing in his head would be the equivalent to
betraying his country and the parents who raised him. Mikey ran a hand through
his short cropped hair trying to think of what he was supposed to do.

On one hand, he loved it among the
very unique and friendly people who had been so kind to him and risked their
lives to save him even though he wasn’t the person they had been looking for.

On the other hand was the oath he
took when he became a soldier. He was pretty sure the aliens here would qualify
under the ‘protecting the country from enemies foreign’ part of that oath. From
what he’d seen, they were a formidable fighting force that would give any
country pause if they knew of them. They combined the ones with abilities and
regular Valendrans and Tezarians into specialized teams that would make any
general drool to have control over.

Between the training and the
technology Mikey had seen, these people—aliens—could have taken over the world
many times over. But they hadn’t. And that was what kept him from reaching for
the phone and calling his commanding officer to report their location. He
wanted to know why.

If they weren’t here to take over,
then why were they here?
Mikey wondered as he began to pace.

He’d read about the Valendrans and
how some of the women on this planet were capable of helping them to save their
own planet’s population problems. He’d also read extensively of the Relians,
but none of that explained why they weren’t working with the UN or even the US
government to eradicate the Relians and to help humanity with their advanced
technology.

Then he remembered how his own
government had treated him when they thought he was one of the aliens, and he
could understand a little better why the aliens weren’t too keen on exposing
themselves to any government. Even though Mikey hated the government for what
they had done to him, it still didn’t make him feel any better about not making
that phone call.

The light knock on the door pulled
him from his thoughts and he called out, “Come in,” hoping it was Lauren.

He smiled automatically when he saw
her face peek around the corner of the door.

“I figured you might be hungry,”
Lauren said with a shy smile for the young soldier as she stepped into his
room.

Mikey smiled as he nodded his head.

“Yeah, I’m pretty hungry. Where do
you go for food around here?” he asked conversationally even though he knew
where the mess halls were from the maps posted in the closet in his room.

Lauren blushed a pretty pink as his
eyes roamed over her appreciatively.

“There’s two of them, so it depends
on what you want. If you’re feeling pretty brave there’s also a small area of
Hall One where they serve traditional Valendran and Tezarian dishes,” Lauren
offered with a challenging grin.

Mikey winced, not feeling
particularly adventurous at the moment. After reading their history and trying
to understand how he fit into it, he’d had his fill of alien trivia for the
day.

“Can we go with something less . .
. alien? I’ve kind of had enough for one day,” he teased.

“How about we go with classic
American then?” Lauren suggested with a grin.

Mikey sighed dramatically in relief
before he took her hand and led her from his room.

“I thought you didn’t know where
the dining halls were?” Lauren asked as he led her unerringly to the correct
eating area.

Mikey grinned down at her and
winked.

“I’m a guy; I’m just following my
nose and stomach,” he teased.

“Guess those heightened senses are
good for something, huh?” Lauren replied with a mischievous smile.

“No, none of that tonight,” Mikey
said as he stopped in the middle of the hallway and shook his head at her.
“Nothing about peeping toms, aliens, or crazy stuff in general. Deal?”

“Peeping toms?” Lauren asked in
surprise.

“Don’t ask,” Mikey said as he led
them into the dining hall and into the short line.

He didn’t know why, but just the
thought of hearing one more thing about aliens made him want to punch something
. . . or someone. Not wanting to ruin their dinner together with a bad
attitude, Mikey felt it best to try and avoid talk of the subject altogether
until he could figure things out in his mind.

He grabbed two trays while Lauren
got their silverware, and they went through the line picking their food in
silence. Lauren stopped in surprise as she saw the Valendran Commander, Ivint
Torenson behind the serving line tossing salad.

“Sir?” Lauren asked with surprise.

Ivint turned to her with a broad
grin.

“Lauren! So good to see you! It’s
my turn in the rotation for kitchen duty. Luckily, they gave me something easy
to do,” Ivint said with a smile as he looked at Mikey. “Is this the young
soldier Grai rescued?”

Lauren blushed in embarrassment for
not having already made the introductions.

“Sorry, sir. PFC Mikey Davis, this
is the Valendran Commander, Ivint Torenson,” she introduced, watching Mikey
carefully to see how he would react to another Valendran commander.

Mikey held out his hand over the
top of the serving glass.

“Sir, it’s an honor to meet you. I
read a lot about you,” Mikey said diplomatically, although he was more than a
little irritated that his attempts to avoid anything alien was already a bust.

Ivint chuckled and shook his hand
before going back to tossing the salad.

“None of that sir stuff in here.
It’s meal time, and that means relax and enjoy. If you have any questions, son,
feel free to contact me anytime,” Ivint offered, turning back to his kitchen
duties.

They quickly finished their way
through the line, and Mikey carried both trays while Lauren led him across the
room to a small table. Mikey tried to follow Lauren’s movements and not look at
the half filled room of aliens they’d just walked into.

Once they were settled at the table,
Mikey looked at Lauren in irritation.

“Is that normal?”

Lauren looked around the room in
surprise, saw nothing out of order, and she turned back to Mikey.

“Is what normal?” she asked.

Mikey used his fork to gesture to
the serving area they’d just come from.

“A commanding officer working in
the kitchen isn’t a little odd to you?” Mikey asked suspiciously.

He was beginning to wonder if all
of this was an elaborate set up for his benefit. To manipulate him into
betraying his country by convincing him that they were better than humans. That
he was better than humans.

Lauren looked at him curiously,
unsure what he was getting at.

“No, not really. In most known
beast societies, everyone assists in ensuring the well-being and structure of
the community. Everyone is assigned communal duties, and even if you’re on a
mission, when you come back, you perform your duties,” Lauren responded gently,
feeling the disturbance and confusion in his energy.

Mikey wasn’t convinced at all; if
anything he was angry that she was taking part in this hoax and lying to him.
He expected better of her for some reason.

“Why? Why the commanders?” he asked
a little more roughly than he intended.

Lauren put her fork down and
wondered at the conflicting emotions she felt in his energy.

“Because they are no different than
anyone else. They eat the food that is grown and walk the same streets as
everyone else. In our societies, your position does not make you immune to the
work that keeps your communities functioning properly,” Lauren explained,
keeping her tone even. 

Mikey snorted and shook his head in
disbelief as he threw his fork to his plate, unaware of the curious stares
being sent his way.

“So you’re saying that same
commander in there,” he said, pointing to the kitchen with his thumb, “could be
doing a trash detail tomorrow.”

Lauren nodded her head as she
smiled gently at him.

“I did that two weeks ago.
Although, I sorted the recycling and didn’t have to try and lift the heavy
stuff,” she admitted.

“You’re a doctor aren’t you?” Mikey
demanded.

“Yes, but I’m also a member of this
community. Everyone is required to pull their own weight. There are no
exceptions. I know this isn’t what you’re used to, but it works for us,” Lauren
responded, wondering if it was the difference in their society and the humans
that was really bothering him.

“What about the elderly? Or
disabled?” he countered, knowing there had to be something they must be hiding.

No society was like this utopian
crap they were trying to manipulate him into believing. People were far too
drama hungry and self-oriented to ever work together in such an unrealistic
fashion. Mikey wasn’t stupid, he knew there were people out there spouting
their foul garbage about wanting such things, but only if the rules didn’t
apply to them.

Lauren snorted this time.

“The elderly are not stupid and
useless. They are a fount of history, information, and experience. They are
magnificent with the little ones as teachers, companions, storytellers, and
even daycare providers. We do not have disabled people,” Lauren said
defensively.

Mikey felt like he’d finally found
his “aha” moment, and he struck.

“So you kill those no longer useful
to you? Is that why you have no disabled?” he accused, pointing at her with an
accusing finger.

Lauren shook her head sadly,
finally realizing he was looking for an excuse to hate them. To find fault with
them. At least that’s how it appeared.

“No, that isn’t why we have no
disabled. We have none because even those who may not be able to do everything
others do still can contribute. If you can contribute, then you aren’t
disabled, are you? And those who can no longer contribute in the ways they
would like have earned the right to leave this existence in whatever way they
choose. Be it ending their life or spending their days on a golf course, they
earned the right to make that decision,” Lauren explained, wishing she could
erase the anger and mistrust she felt in his energy.

“You encourage them to off
themselves when you think they aren’t useful anymore?” Mikey accused, more than
a little stunned by the thought.

“No!” Lauren said a little louder
than she intended so she lowered her voice. “That is not how it works. No one
is ever encouraged to die, but it is no one else’s decision to make either.”

“But you don’t discourage it
either?” Mikey countered.

Lauren was getting a little
irritated at his combative attitude and accusations.

“We don’t presume to think we know
what is better for someone else. You’re confusing us with the humans. We do not
have the energy disturbances that the humans are going through right now; our
species’ have passed the point of evolution that caused disturbances of the
mind. Only in the case of an anomalous beast do our people ever suffer from
what the humans refer to as depression, and we have no suicide rate,” Lauren
explained, her tone harder and more insistent than before.

Mikey knew he was being an
unreasonable ass, but he couldn’t stop the surge of anger and resentment he
felt pouring from him. It felt as if he had no control over his body or
emotions and he watched almost as if in a tunnel as he flipped the table over
and stalked a terrified Lauren into a corner.

His fists clenched in rage and he
screamed in his mind for his hand to stop as it rose to strike a stunned
Lauren. He barely restrained himself long enough for the Valendran commander to
tackle him to the floor.