Mobius (24 page)

With the plan in effect, we huddled in a dark corner, waiting like skittish chickens. With each drip of water, we flinched. With each scurrying hobgoblin, we reeled. The two moons at the ocean’s edge poured a rich light through the opening, into the cavern, and down the corridor. Our one chance for survival was held in the weight of a hulking mass of mineral deposit. Despite the uselessness of our plasma guns, we held them at the ready.

I glanced sidelong to Allienora. Her face glowed in the moonlight. I noticed her hands trembling and attempted to steady them with my own. She smiled timidly and then looked back toward the corridor.

A concussion jarred my senses. In a daze, I realized the trap had been tripped. The impact shook the cave with such intensity that a mass of rock collapsed in upon the opening, leaving us in total darkness. I turned on our electric lantern.

“Did we get them?” asked Morion. He held his plasma gun close to his body, turning frantically this way and that way. “Do you see them? I see none. Did we get them? Did they get past?”

I crept up to the pile of toppled stalagmites. “At least one hasn’t escaped.” An armored leg splayed out from the pile. I poked at it with the barrel of my plasma gun and it remained still. “I’m not sure about the other two.”

From the shadows, one of the aliens jumped toward me. With tremendous strength, Orsteen struck it, sending it flying. Before hitting the cave wall, it vanished into a blue light that only I could see.

“Thank you, Orsteen.” I rushed to the blocked opening that had overlooked the ocean. “Quickly, let’s clear this rubble so we can escape.”

“I’ll hold off the aliens,” said Orsteen, as another sprang from a dark hole. He successfully wrestled it away and it retreated back to the shadows.

As Allienora and I worked to gain access to the outside, Morion came forward with plasma gun in hand. “Stand clear! I’ll blast it open.”

Allienora pushed down his weapon. “Are you crazy? You’ll cause an avalanche that’ll sweep us all into the ocean with a hundred tons of rock.”

Morion grunted. He tucked his plasma gun into his belt, and continued to clear away rocks, piece by piece.

Orsteen stood in a defensive crouch, arms held at guard. He cursed the two remaining aliens as they hurled themselves forth from the shadows. He moved fast and caught them by their heads with his massive hands. He lifted them high into the air, roared angrily, and then cast them to the ground as though to drive them to the very depths of Hell.

The two aliens merely bounced on the ground and rolled back into darkness. An instant later, one of them reappeared and performed an unexpected dance. As Orsteen watched in disbelief, the other alien came out of hiding and jumped on his back. In an instant, both Orsteen and the alien disappeared.

I launched a boulder toward the remaining alien. It dodged it effortlessly.

While Allienora and Morion continued clearing the opening, I grabbed a splinter of stalactite from the pile of rubble and poked and prodded at the alien, trying to keep it at bay. The other alien reappeared from wherever it had taken Orsteen.

“Allienora! Morion!” I screamed. “Behind you!”

Allienora smashed a rock over its head. Morion, in a panic, fired his plasma gun, only to miss the alien. The plasma molecule shot to the ceiling, where it broke free a slender stalactite. It fell like a spear down on Allienora, goring her through the abdomen. Her face froze in absolute horror. She grabbed the stony sliver extending from her belly, exhaled a profound breath, and fell to the floor.

Before Morion could fire another shot, the alien jumped onto him and they crashed down on Allienora’s body. A second later, the three disappeared.

My emotions swelled.
Kill them! Murder them!

Allienora’s deathly expression fueled my rage. I lashed out at the remaining alien with all my substance, smashing rock and fist upon the little creature. Despite all the strength and speed I summoned, I couldn’t harm it. I punched it away, but a moment later it returned with twice the effort. It leaped and plunged at me, snatching and grabbing with armored hands, trying to take hold of me.

Defeating the alien no longer seemed possible. I pulled out my plasma gun. “Fuck you, you little troll!”

I sent a stream of plasma molecules to the ceiling. Rock and stalactites rained down, and the cave began collapsing in on itself.

I waited for the end.

The alien darted around, trying to avoid the falling rock. It could’ve easily escaped with the use of its transporter, but, for some reason, it chose to risk life and limb to capture me.

By some divine favor, the pile of rubble blocking the cave’s opening gave way, and moonlight spilled through. I rushed through the opening, and threw myself over the cliff’s edge into air. A ten-meter drop took me to the cold waters below. I hit the water with a jolting whack. I struggled to stay afloat—I was tangled in a mesh of alien seaweed.

I flailed at the water’s surface, trying to grab a nonexistent edge of land. Beginning to sink, I realized something had my foot and was pulling me down. It crawled up my legs. I felt what I knew to be two armored hands. The alien had followed me down. I kicked to no avail. Before I became fully submerged, I took a deep breath.

I continued trying to break free, until the reflex to breathe overpowered me. In a violent contraction, cold water overwhelmed my lungs. My head filled with a burning pressure and my consciousness failed.

BIOLINGUISTIC

LOBE

I woke up to a dream, to a nightmare, to an afterlife
—I wasn’t sure. I hung in an upright position. A cold metal restraint pressed against my naked chest. I felt like a deflated balloon—weak and flimsy.

I saw a figure, like a shadow, passing in front of me. It came closer. It was one of the lank aliens with backward-bending knees. A closer look revealed its sophisticated skin. The surface was glossy and nearly transparent. Embedded within the skin were fiber-optic-like filaments, causing the skin to glow ever so slightly.

It must be a machine
, I thought.

It turned its tall, narrow head in my direction, as though it heard me thinking. Two oversized eyes looked at me intensely—they seemed almost human. Polyps around its small mouth quivered with a high-pitch trilling sound and I heard a whisper, “I am alive. I am sentient.”

I couldn’t respond.

It suddenly revealed a vicious-looking mechanism ending in two metal talons. I shuddered as the talons veered toward my eyes with a slow, deliberate motion. They spread open like those of an eagle before snatching prey. I tried to close my eyes, but they refused. I tried to beg the alien for mercy, but my mouth failed me.

The two talons grasped the tender orbs of my eyeballs. Pain! Horror! My mind screamed. I heard a bloodcurdling crunch and pop before again losing consciousness.

I stirred after what seemed an eternity of slumber. Still half-asleep, I had the wishful thought that the past few weeks were just a fading dream. Sadly, everything flooded back and I remembered what happened to Allienora.

I’ve lost you already, my dear. Everyone dies in my path.

I was still in an upright position, bound and paralyzed. I inspected my prison. The walls glowed with an electric-yellow light. Below me sat a large basin of fluid, in which floated unusual masses of tissue. Their gray, glistening substance resembled brain matter. I tried not to think of their purpose or origin.

Upon a small table sat an assortment of strange surgical tools, including the two-talon mechanism I had believed to be a figment of a passing dream.

What have they done to me? Why can I still see?

I realized the ill-effect of my synthetic eyes was gone, leaving me to wonder if the aliens had replaced them with new ones.

There was something behind me. I felt strange emanations. It was like I was secured to some kind of machine. Something penetrated my skull, possibly linking me to that machine.

I hung there for a while, staring at the air in front of me. All I could think about was Allienora and the short time we had spent together.

My sweet Allienora,
I thought.
You deserved longer. Ever since we met, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time
.
Life is so much better when you have someone to share it with. We could’ve been happy together. I’m sorry, my dear.

Allienora’s soft voice filled my head:
Such passionate words. If we’re being honest, I think you may be a little too old for me. But as they say, love has no boundaries, right?

Allienora?
You’re not dead?

I don’t think so. Unless in the afterlife you’re paralyzed, and forced to stare for eternity at a wall of blinding yellow light.
Allienora’s words became intense:
Is that you, Theron? I thought I was hallucinating.

How is it we’re communicating?
I thought.
My mouth doesn’t move, yet you hear me.

I don’t know,
came Allienora.
However, my thoughts are what you perceive as well. Are you also hanging from some great machine?

Yes. We must be close, since the walls are the same glowing yellow you described.
I suddenly felt tears in my eyes.
I’m glad you’re alive.

So am I.

Hold on,
I interrupted. From the electric-yellow wall, a previously undetectable crack expanded into an oval doorway. From it, one of our captors appeared.
One of the aliens enters.

“Excellent, you’re awake,” said the alien in a perfect English dialect. “I was beginning to fear you had brain damage from the operation.”

As it spoke, I noticed its mouth didn’t move. However, the polyps surrounding its mouth trilled in sync with every word I heard.

It continued, “It was possible you weren’t going to wake up.”

Unable to move or speak aloud, I stared at the alien.

“Forgive me,” said the alien. It approached a control podium and tapped on it, triggering my release.

I felt a network of fibers retract from the back of my head—it was a weird sensation. The metal restraint at my chest released, and I fell to the ground in a mound of bent joints and loose muscles. I picked myself up and stood proudly, unashamed by my nakedness.

“What have you done to us, you evil fucks?”

The alien’s expression shifted. “I admit that my skills with such procedures are that of a novice, but ‘evil’ is a harsh term to use considering I’ve saved your lives. I was the only person on this planet with the skill to help you. I only did as the two Oryxes instructed.”

“And how is it you speak my language so fluently?”

“I don’t,” said the alien. “Besides repairing your mortal injuries, I was also asked to implant a biolinguistic lobe within your brain. This will allow you to communicate with any other species with such a lobe. It works by a sort of psychic transmission. In short time, you’ll master its use, so not to mingle your thoughts with your intended communication.” The alien gestured to a tangle of metal on the table. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t implant the biolinguistic lobe without removing your primitive neural implant. This setback may have been the reason you were comatose for so long.”

“Comatose?” I said.

“You’ve been unconscious for two hundred days.”

“Impossible.”

“Don’t worry,” continued the alien. “If you had any appointments to keep, you won’t miss them. This room is contained within a temporal bubble, which dilates time. For every day that passes within, only a minute passes outside.”

“Remarkable,” I said. “And where is outside?”

“We’re in the floating city of Azimoir, not far from where the Oryxes found you.”

“What of my companions? Where are they?”

The alien again tapped at the control podium. The machine from which I had hung was in the shape of a large cube. It revolved, revealing the naked figures of Allienora, Morion, and Orsteen.

“They’re all alive,” said the alien. “The female is healed, and everyone’s biolinguistic lobe is functioning properly.” The alien pointed to me. “You were the most troublesome of my patients. I had to remove your artificial eyes. They sucked the life right out of you. Though I must say, they were a lovely albeit imperfect design.” The alien ran a hand along his arm, showcasing his glowing skin. “Your people may someday achieve total systematic integration.”

“So you’re not a machine?”

“Organic or mechanical, we’re all machines. But to answer your question, my people are mostly organic.”

“What else did you do to me?”

“Your tissues were saturated with poison. I tried to flush it from your system, but your brain is dependent on it. Thus, I grafted a gland to your pancreas to supplement your system.”

With new eyes and the amber narcotic in my blood, I now knew why my mind was so clear.

“What’s next for us? Why have we been taken captive?” I realized there was a much greater issue. “Why have you invaded Earth?”

“I know nothing about this place you call ‘Earth,’ or the invasion you describe. Yet, the name is somehow familiar.” The alien rubbed one of its quivering polyps with a long finger. “I consider myself a well-traveled man, acquainted with many civilizations, and, still, I’ve never seen beings quite like you. Moreover, I’ve never heard of a species not born with biolinguistic lobes.” The alien extended his long finger upward. “I must reference the compendium.” He stood at the control podium, and after a few minutes formed an expression like shock. “The Oryxes didn’t tell me who you were. You’ll have to talk to them. I’ll let them know you’re awake.”

The alien manipulated the control podium and Allienora, Morion, and Orsteen all fell from their bondage. The alien walked briskly toward the electric-yellow wall. It generated an opening that immediately sealed shut once he passed through.

We stretched our weary limbs and rolled our heads, attempting to regain our flexibility. In all, the machine that had sustained us during our sleep prevented any serious atrophy.

I found everyone’s clothes on a nearby table.

Allienora stood in a timid pose, shielding her nakedness to the best of her ability. She looked at me and smiled. “It’s good to see the color of your real eyes, Theron. Hazel always suited you.”

“It’s good to see you with them.”

From behind her, Morion ogled her pleasing form.
The things I’d do to you. The positions I’d have you in.

Allienora glared at Morion in revolt. “Your thoughts are easily heard with our new biolinguistic lobes. I assume this is the case for all weak-minded souls.”

“So, our thoughts have become one.” Morion smiled wide. “What a turn of events. In light of our new psychic connection, I’ll explore your thoughts and discover your true feelings for me. They’re likely pent deep within you, my lovely Allienora.” Morion modeled his nude figure, arms akimbo, chest heaving, belly drawn in, and face twisted in a perverted grin. “Look at me! And reveal your emotions!”

I laughed at Morion’s absurd pose and his look of stupid concentration as he tried to read Allienora’s mind. “I think you’re going crazy, Morion.”

“I’m a dreamer, Mr. Mobius!”

“Whatever you are, it’s good to know you’re capable of bringing humor to any situation. Every company of travelers should have a clown on hand. It’s good for the spirit.”

Morion released his breath and let his stomach fall forward. He grabbed his clothes from me, and then turned away with slumped shoulders.

The armored aliens—or Oryxes, as we now knew them—would arrive shortly. I put on my clothes and went to the table of surgical tools. I selected some kind of scalpel. When I pushed a button on it, the blade glowed red as if the molecules became energized.