Authors: Cynthia Dixon
“So, if I understood that right, you are here for us to get to know each other? Spend some time together, and then let me make my choice?” she finally asked.
“Yes and no. We are here to prove to you that what you have experienced last night was indeed real. More importantly, We aim to show you that We are true to our word, and that you may trust Us. Is that not reason enough for you to follow Us to Our ship?"
“So, you expect me to give you my answer as early as tonight?” Caroline asked as she raised an eyebrow.
“No, Caroline. I expect you to say ‘yes’ to Us within the hour,” Zorn responded with a confident smile.
Is he… Oh, who am I kidding, of course he is for real.
With a courteous smile, she weighed her options. The alien was beyond dreamy, but he was kind of pushy, and she still knew, more or less, nothing about him. He also wanted her to leave her old life behind, which was something she was not all that comfortable with.
“Um, your majesty…” she finally said after a couple of moments.
“By all means, feel free to call Us Zorn,” the alien replied.
“Alright, Zorn, is there any chance that we could use tonight to only have a chat? You know, let impressions form properly before I have to make a decision like that? You can come again tomorrow, night again, if you like.” She spoke slowly, and as respectfully as she could. By the way the alien’s expression changed, she knew that she was not altogether successful.
“You
dare
? After We have come all this way, did
this
much, you
dare
make more demands while talking to us from the inside of a
machine
?” His facial muscles tightened as he spoke, while his hands clenched into fists.
Darn it!
Caroline thought as she hurriedly helped herself up and out of the driver’s cabin. Doing her best to ignore the pressure that built up in her lower belly, she approached the alien and
very
carefully tried to take his hands with her own. Surprisingly, he let her, although his expression still looked quite angry.
“Zorn, I can see that you’re upset, and I guess that I can understand that. You’re a king, and I reckon kings aren’t used to not getting what they want. But I would really,
really
like to get the chance to know the real you, you know? Not Zorn the king, but Zorn the individual. I’m sure that you’ve got
quite a bit
going on under that hood, if you know what I mean!” She ended her speech with the sweetest smile she could manage.
Slowly, the alien king unclenched his fists, and his expression became slightly more mirthful.
Yes!
Caroline thought, fastening her own grip around his now-opened hands.
Maybe I’ll get through this, after all.
“Being good with words is plus when it comes to women, you know.” he finally replied, giving her just a hint of a smile.
Yes!
Caroline exclaimed silently, although given her expression, she might as well have yelled it out loud.
Then, something about Zorn changed, and she felt the pressure build up in her belly again. He was tense; she could feel it in the hands she touched. His forehead wrinkled. His teeth clenched firmly. The light given off by his eyes now seemed more intense. She was just about to say something when he slipped out of her grip and grabbed her by her sizeable waist.
“Zorn, just what are you d—“ she started to exclaim as he tossed her to the side, away from him and the tractor. Luckily, the softness of her own body had cushioned her fall, and she did not injure herself, as far she could tell. In anger, she turned her head back toward the alien king, only to find herself squinting due to an intense explosion of light.
Just what is going on here?
The (initially faint) mechanical buzzing that slowly increased in intensity answered her question soon enough. With swift, inhuman movements, a total of three
cats
surfaced from the surrounding cornrows. Their eyes did not glow all that much, probably indicating that they had recently fired.
So, that light didn’t come from Zorn’s eyes after all!
On the verge of panic, Caroline looked back toward Zorn, finding him unconscious and on the ground in front and to the side of her tractor.
But why?
She helped herself back on her feet, looking left and right as she tried to think.
Why would his own cats turn against him?
With no answer in sight, Caroline did the only thing she could: she ran toward the vehicle as fast as her curvaceous body could carry her. For a moment, she considered trying to help Zorn, but there was no way for her to lift that massive body of his.
I am so, so sorry.
Just barely managing to beat the cold shiver that almost prevented her from walking up the steps, she practically fell into the driver’s cabin. Frantically, she slammed the door shut, clutched the key, and turned it around. The sound given off by a starting tractor was generally not pleasant, but at the moment it sounded like the sweetest thing she would ever hear. Shoving the gas pedal as far as it would go was surprisingly enjoyable, as well.
Pushed past what it was used to, the vehicle gave off an unpleasant screech before it rumbled forward. Two of the
cats
completely ignored it, while one appeared to be on a deliberate collision course.
Maybe I can damage it by driving over it!
Caroline thought as she steered the tractor toward the metallic thing. It appeared very cooperative with her intentions. Then, just a moment before the collision, Caroline blinked, and the robot-thing was gone.
What? Where?
She turned her head left and right, expecting to see something,
anything,
fly through the air or lie on the ground behind her. Much to her chagrin, there was nothing.
It didn’t… it didn’t latch on to my tractor, did it?
The thought made her feel nauseated, but she had to keep her foot on the pedal.
Just what are they going to do to him?
she asked herself as she stared in her rearview mirror, where the pair of
cats
was just about to converge on top of Zorn’s unconscious body.
What do I do? Should I turn around?
The sound of breaking glass that came from her right served to turn her away from that conundrum.
The white light that engulfed the inside of the driver’s cabin made it abundantly clear what was going on, but she still tilted her head toward its source. The robot-thing’s head was almost fully inside, and it had driven its claws through the outside of the door. The glow in its eye was becoming more and more intense, and she knew exactly what that meant.
It’s preparing to zap me.
Desperate and with no other option, she quickly put her seat belt on before sharply turning the wheel. Moving at top speed and with the stow-away at its side, the tractor easily lost its balance and crashed, trapping the
cat underneath its dented door
. The last thing Caroline saw before she hit the side of her head on the steering wheel was the thing’s ominous, glowing eye.
Later?
“Ma, I think I’ll have an apple pie, or two,” she mumbled to herself as her consciousness slowly came back. Images and sounds still didn’t quite get through the haze she was in, and she initially found it difficult to recall the events that had led to her situation. Then, as her vision became clearer and clearer, so did her memory, and with it came a sense of inescapable dread.
The thing! The cat-thing that went after me!
She immediately recognized it. The alien robot was inactive and pressed underneath the right side of the tractor. The vehicle was apparently still on its side, given the way her neck dangled toward the floor when she came to. The seatbelt had done its job admirably, and besides the dull aching pain in her head, she did not seem all that injured.
She remembered her alien suitor, and how he had tossed her out of the way of the
cats’
attack.
Zorn!
What has happened to him?
She reflexively grabbed the clasp of her seatbelt, ready to release herself so she could go and check on Zorn.
But wouldn’t that make me fall on the… thing?
She inspected it again. It didn’t seem all that damaged. Still,
something
had to be banged up pretty bad inside to make it shut down like that.
Oh, heck, no!
As if the
cat
had read her thoughts, its head started twitching uncontrollably. The door moved as well, albeit only a little bit; an obvious consequence of the thing’s limbs shaking wildly underneath.
Come on, don’t! Power off! Pretty please?
It didn’t comply. Instead, the eye in the center of its smooth, elongated face was slowly starting to glow again. At first only glimmering, the round thing became more and more radiant with every passing moment.
Oh, come on!
She turned her gaze away, both to shield her eyes from the increasing intensity of the light, and to look for a way out of the tractor. Unlocking the door would be easy, but on the other hand, she knew full well how heavy she was. She didn’t know if she had the strength to pull herself out with her hands alone, and touching the side that pressed on the
cat
was out of the question.
For all I know, it might be baiting me like a snake.
Then came the inhuman hissing sounds. Like a poor mockery of an animal, the thing started giving off a grotesque, unpleasant call, as the frequency of its shaking gradually increased. She looked toward it once more, holding her fingers in front of her eyes to shield them. The
cat
was now more than active.
For all I know, it might be preparing to blast me.
She would have to take her chances. Having turned back toward the left door, she awkwardly opened it.
Now comes the hard part.
She grabbed the edge of the roof, said her prayers, and released her seatbelt. The amount of pain she felt in her shoulder was greater than anything she had ever felt before. Had she not grabbed the seat with her left arm, she might have torn something inside as well.
And now to—oh, come on!
She felt something break through the metal behind her. More out of instinct than anything else, Caroline propelled herself out of the vehicle, mostly by using the strength of her own hands. She was just about to pull her torso out, when she felt a cold, three-fingered hand-thing grasp around her right ankle. Completely out of her mind from the fear, she kept tugging, but gravity seemed to be in cahoots with the
cat,
and readily lent it its assistance.
“Let go!” she yelled as she kicked the thing in the face. It tightened its grip in response, causing her ankle to hurt even more. The light from its eye grew more and more intense, and she knew that the blast was not far behind.
I don’t want to get zapped!
Her hand was slipping. Within a second or less, she would be unable to hold herself up.
Then, just when Caroline was about to fall, something strong grabbed her by the shoulder with one hand. Seemingly within the same moment, the figure tossed a sizeable rock toward the metal thing’s glowing eye, shattering it and causing the light to fade instantly. Shocked, she turned her head toward her savior, and found herself staring into Zorn’s handsome face.
“We do not allow our chosen to be treated that way,” he said, smiling, all while he dragged her plus-sized body out of the tractor.
“I—I saw them gang up on you! I was sure that you were gone! I didn’t mean to…” she diverted her eyes from his gaze as he helped her down to the ground.
“It is fine, Caroline. There was nothing you could do.” He put on a tough show, but his torso showed some lacerations, probably from the tops of the
cats
’ sharp fingers.
“But how did y—“ the thing in the tractor gave off a horrifying shriek, causing her to recoil and fall silent.
“Excuse Us for a moment,” Zorn said, grabbing the door to the driver’s seat and jumping into the cabin. Almost instantly, the sound intensified, then quickly died out. Everything was quiet for a full second, before the muscled figure of Zorn leapt back out of the vehicle, holding the
cat’s
disembodied head.
Oh, wow.
“So, that’s how you did it, huh?” she asked, still afraid to look at what remained of the robot.
“Indeed. Our physiognomy, and thus our reaction to their weaponry, is significantly different than yours. We recover quickly. But three is a bit much, even for Us to handle,” he said as he held the robot’s head in front of his face, and stared into its shattered eye.
“Well, good that one of them went after me, then,” Caroline replied, still confused about the whole thing. “Say, why did those things even attack you in the first place? Aren’t they something like your servants?”
“
Something
like that. They are synthetic creations capable of independent operation, but my kind can also directly assume control over one or more of them when need be. The fact that one of them went after you is a clear indication that this particular conspiracy involves more than one member of the Great Race.”