The Clone’s Mate by Susan Trombley

Ten

I have come to the conclusion that soul searching sucks. Of course, when it’s the only thing you have to do to kill the time, you end up doing a lot of it.

The aliens kept me in a small cube with nothing else to occupy me but studying my surroundings and thinking about the turn my life had taken. It wouldn’t be so bad if the walls weren’t clear so that my captors could observe me from every single angle at all hours of the day. It also unnerved me that I could observe other cube cells stacked like cargo crates in a huge warehouse.

Many of those other cells were occupied, but it looked like most contained animals. I didn’t see a lot of evidence of sentient behavior. Of course, after meeting Subject 34, I probably shouldn’t make assumptions about the other creatures. They might all be sapient alien species.

I didn’t see any other humans, which made me uncertain whether I should be sad I was all alone, or grateful no other humans were suffering.

What I did see was a few other creatures that seemed like the same species as Nirgal, given the strange coloring, long hair, and pointed ears. Those creatures had dragonfly-like wings similar to Subject 34’s, and I wondered if Nirgal had them too and I’d somehow missed them. Maybe he’d kept them under his lab coat.

Those Nirgal-like aliens all looked to be in various stages of distress. Some were extremely gaunt, like they were starving to death, but when food was dropped into their cells—looking exactly like the grainy, tasteless food bars plunked into mine every so often—they ignored that food. Instead, they lay listlessly, staring at nothing. They didn’t react at all when creatures in neighboring cells slammed against the clear walls to try to attack the colorful aliens.

The ones who weren’t completely emaciated tended to shriek and bang on the walls with as much rage and frustration as I felt, though I’d discovered pretty quickly the futility of that. These aliens didn’t seem to ever figure out that their efforts were pointless.

The cells appeared to be soundproof, so I couldn’t hear their maddened cries any more than I could hear the other caged beasts, including a couple of terrifying giant black scorpions pacing back and forth in their clear enclosures, occasionally stinging the crap out of the impervious walls, their venom spattering the surface, only to be hosed down by machines that they also futilely stung.

Those things gave me nightmares! They also got fed raw meat rather than the protein bars the other aliens and I got, and I didn’t watch them eat it.

Most of the Nirgal-type aliens didn’t appear in the least bit interested in their fellow captives. I assumed they were male, given that they were nude and had flaccid penises hanging at their groin. They also had strange, segmented appendages at the base of their spines, curled up just above the curve of their buttocks. Occasionally, I’d see those appendages unfurl and scratch the walls with their clawed tips, but they were no more effective than the stingers of the giant scorpions.

I say “most” weren’t interested in their fellow captives, because one did appear to be. He also just so happened to be my cell neighbor, but I didn’t get warm fuzzies from him. Sometimes, he’d just stare at me with glass green eyes and an unreadable expression on a surprisingly handsome face. His eyes looked as cold as Subject 34’s in those moments. At other times, he’d study me with an almost confused expression, his green brows drawing together over his eyes.

Like the other aliens, he was nude, but since he sat quietly in his cell most of the time, his bits weren’t swinging around in what had to be an uncomfortable way. Usually, he had his knees drawn up and his hands folded over his lap to conceal his groin from me and perhaps any other watchers. I never saw his appendages unfurl, and his wings looked shriveled.

He had iridescent green skin and long green hair that was tangled like that of the others. Occasionally though, he made an attempt to groom it, running slender fingers through it, though it seemed hopelessly matted in some spots and would probably have to be cut off at the shoulder to get it completely smooth again.

He was lean but not completely emaciated like many of the others, and he ate every food bar put into his cell and drank the water from the machines that hosed us down as frequently as once a day. The excess water drained out of the bottom of the cells into clear pans beneath them, and a system of pipes drained the water away from the stacked cells.

My cell neighbor didn’t do anything overtly threatening, but I still felt unnerved by his gaze, though I didn’t get pervert vibes from it. Despite my nudity, I didn’t get the impression that he found me desirable to look at. Most of the time, I felt like he was studying me out of curiosity. Other times, when his gaze grew colder than Nirgal’s, I wondered if he was thinking about how fun it would be to kill me.

The handsomeness of his face also reminded me too clearly of my abductor, Jason, and his creepy bros, and I suspected they were of the same species as this guy and Nirgal. Though I detected marked differences in the arch of the brow, the coloring of skin, hair, and eyes, the precise shape of jaw and nose and eyes, they all seemed to possess a “sameness” to their features, as if they conformed to a very narrow beauty standard.

I had no idea why we were all kept in this warehouse of horrors, though I could certainly speculate all day long and scare the shit out of myself. A gigantic robotic claw would come in along ceiling tracks from time to time to snatch up a hapless captive, or in the case of the more dangerous captives, grab the entire cell from the stack. Where they went or what happened to them, I had no idea, but some didn’t return. Others returned looking listless or extremely sick.

Creepy green guy’s constant staring and occasional glaring weren’t enough to keep my attention after the first few rounds of food bars. Despite everything I had available to look at, including the occasional robots and guards that walked the path between cell stacks, I grew bored and restless. Not bored in the sense of ennui from a comfortable life but bored in the sense that my body simply couldn’t maintain the constant state of alertness and terror I’d been feeling up until my prolonged imprisonment.

That’s when the soul searching started. It was also when I truly began to process everything that had happened to me since my abduction.

Looking back at my mindset when I’d gone into that hardware store, I almost chuckled at naïve self. Given my current predicament, my problems seemed almost petty back then. On the other hand, they’d caused plenty of emotional damage and heartache. The fact that I hadn’t been physically in danger didn’t mean I hadn’t been badly hurt.

Michael might be distant figure, but my memory of his betrayal remained sharp. It shouldn’t matter at this time, but I still felt the scar inside me. I’d put so much of my heart and my life into him, and I’d lost it all because of things outside of my control.

Now I had zero control over anything at all, and no outlet for the emotions ravaging through me in all this time I had to think.

Sadly, the best parts of my last year had probably been when Subject 34 had stung me with an aphrodisiac and made me feel passion and desire I’d never experienced on that level before. That hadn’t even been my choice, but I couldn’t deny that I would take that again in a heartbeat over sitting here ruminating in a prison complex alongside numerous other miserable and tormented creatures.

It was also difficult to accept that I would gladly relive my experiences with 34 over the divorce, the recriminations, the heartbreak of finding out the “other” woman was pregnant, and the loss of my artistic inspiration.

Ten years had passed on Earth, and given Nirgal’s comments, I had no idea what had been left behind of human civilization or what state they were in. I didn’t think the jerk would enlighten me if I tried to ask questions.

I acknowledged that it was a horrifying thought, and I hoped my home world was okay in the aftermath of their conquering by these “Akrellians,” but I also had to acknowledge that I didn’t want to go back there, regardless of what state the world was in.

I’d never been close to my parents or extended family, always feeling disconnected and misunderstood. I’d tried to cultivate the kind of relationship you’d always see in television shows, but it never felt natural to me. My parents had a certain image of what their child should be, and I didn’t fit it. They’d loved that I’d had creative talent and had put me in all kinds of programs to nurture it, but the pressure to perform for them so they could show off all my “art” to their friends and neighbors made it difficult to remain inspired.

Convinced that I needed to grow up like an artist—whatever that even meant—they’d leaned heavily into the idea that I was unique and special and creative, to the point where I felt like they expected me to stand apart from my peers when I just wanted to fit in like any other kid. Still, being a child, I naturally tried to live up to their expectations and shoved myself fully into that role. I wore the right grungy clothes, took all the right classes, said all the proper subversive things, wore my hair in unusual styles, painted on bizarre makeup.

I hated it. The falsity of it all. If they had dressed me in pinafores and pigtails, I don’t think I would have despised it more. It was a character for me. Later, I tried to fit into Michael’s expectations for me, so grateful to abandon the “artistic” personality and style for something more mainstream and ordinary.

I’d been inspired and in love at that time, so I hadn’t felt the same level of resentment I’d felt towards my parents for not nurturing who I was rather than who they wanted me to be. Still, when Michael grew more distant and I no longer had his influence constantly bolstering my new persona, that too began to fall apart.

I had never found myself. Not as a child, and certainly not as Michael’s wife. My parents couldn’t understand that and chalked it up to my “unique and original” personality and my artistic suffering. In fact, my mother had even told me with an almost gleeful tone that my heartache after the divorce would probably fuel my greatest “masterpiece,” finally skyrocketing me to artistic success.

No pressure, Ma. Also, thanks a lot for the compassion and support.

That heartache had the opposite effect on my inspiration. I lost all my interest in art, though I suppose it would be more accurate to say it was buried, because now, it was surging back with the speed of a bullet train.

My fingers itched to sketch something, and my mind swirled with images of exactly what that something could be. I had so many ideas I was surprised they weren’t pouring out my ears and nose. Sometimes, I muttered them aloud to myself because I felt such an urge to talk them out.

I wanted to paint Subject 34—to capture that shadowy creature on canvas, the way he’d been captured in my memory. I wanted to recreate the dark nightmare of him surrounded by a brilliant white background of the maze, and also, I wanted to paint the slight frown on a face too handsome to be human, with eyes too cold to be anything but insectoid.

I even wanted to paint my neighboring captive to recreate what almost seemed to be two distinct demeanors in his body language and facial expressions. One appeared almost thoughtful, if too clinical for my comfort. The other seemed as chilly and lacking in empathy as Nirgal. In fact, even Subject 34 had unnerved me less when I’d looked into his dark eyes for the first time.

I itched to paint Nirgal himself so I could then destroy the canvas with glee. Sometimes, I’d spend hours upon hours perfecting a painting of someone I despised just so their portrait was lifelike enough that I really felt satisfaction in destroying it.

Hey, everyone needs a hobby.

My inspiration had returned with a vengeance—in some cases quite literally—and yet I had no way to make use of it. After half a year of struggling with blank canvases and a stack of paint tubes, now I had nothing but a ton of ideas and concepts and compositions in mind and only a clear, slippery surface where even the crumbs of my food bar wouldn’t stick, especially not when the hose came along.

In addition to wanting to paint, I wanted to learn more about this new reality I’d found myself thrust into. I wanted to ask questions of the green guy, but our cells were soundproof, even if he felt so inclined to respond. Sometimes, I think he did.

Sometimes, I suspected his curiosity about me was as strong as my own about him.

I wanted to know what those other aliens were doing in their cells and why they were so distressed. Why they looked so sickly. I wanted to know what all the other beasts and creatures were, and what purpose they served in this experimental facility.

I should want nothing more than to return home. That would be the normal human reaction to such a situation as I found myself in.

I’ve spent my whole life thinking I “should” feel a certain way that I didn’t feel, and it was starting to piss me off. It was about time I just allowed myself to be exactly what I wanted to be, not what I felt like others expected from me.

Hell no, I didn’t want to go back to Earth! What did I have there?

Parents who wanted me to be something I wasn’t—who would be horrified that I had destroyed some of my best work because they’d think it would have made me famous? An ex who didn’t like who I’d become for his sake and discarded me like I was the empty packaging from a takeout meal he’d already consumed? A society that took one look at me and dismissed me as unimportant and past my prime because I was neither beautiful nor young?

Hell yes, I wanted to see Subject 34 again, because damned if that scary creature didn’t also excite me, and not just when he aroused me. I’ve never felt more alive than I did when I was closest to my death. He’d reminded me of how much I wanted to live, when I’d sunk into a well of despair and ennui at a life where I’d only been waiting out the clock without much interest.

I knew that it wasn’t normal to feel these things. I knew it was strange to want to remain in such a terrible place, with the hope that it could get better and maybe even more interesting, rather than returning to a more mundane, safe existence. I knew all this, just like I knew that I should feel about my parents the way the people in the television shows and movies felt about theirs. I knew that I should feel guilty for not being connected to them, in a way that they’d never been connected to the true me.

So, as I sat in my cell, searching my soul, now filled to the brim with inspiration, I acknowledged the truth. I wasn’t normal, and that abnormality wasn’t a quirky, artistic uniqueness that made me interesting. Then I allowed myself not to give a damn what other people would think about me and my oddness that wasn’t odd enough.

I finally accepted that I’d been presenting one face to society depending on who I wanted to please and pretending that’s how I really thought and felt, but underneath that face, I didn’t fit into any box—no matter how oddly shaped.

It wasn’t a realization that made me feel superior to other people, as if I’d figured out something deep and profound about the world that everyone around me was too blind to see. I’d simply accepted what I’ve always known about myself, and I suspected I wasn’t the only one who’d come to this conclusion and decided to keep it hidden because societal pressure to conform is a bitch, no matter how happy you are with yourself.

And at the moment, epiphany notwithstanding, I hadn’t gained a massive dose of self-esteem. I still had self-doubt, including about my current predicament. I felt like I should be doing more to escape, even if it would make me look as insane as those poor aliens slamming their fists desperately against their walls.

Green guy had apparently come to terms with his imprisonment, since he rarely ever moved from his protected position except to relieve himself or eat. Perhaps he was more like me, aware that he had limitations and that the challenges of this situation exceeded them. He certainly seemed more thoughtful than many of the others.

I don’t think he was fully resigned to this fate though, since he still flinched whenever the claw would pass by, glancing up at it with dread sometimes, and sometimes with a calculating gleam in his green eyes.

One time when it passed, he met my eyes just afterwards, his own as sharp as the bottle green glass they resembled. A slow smirk tilted his lips.

Despite his thin frame, he looked dangerous, and I shivered, turning in my seated position to face the wall of my cell that looked outwards rather than continue meeting his eyes.

After that, I noted that he’d scooted closer to the side of his cell that abutted the side of mine. Eventually, a few meal bars later, he was leaning against that side.

Then he started tapping the wall of his cell near me. I didn’t hear the sounds, but he made very deliberate movements. Slow, fast, fast, slow.

Over and over again.

He was trying to communicate. I really hoped he didn’t expect me to understand whatever code he was going for, because that hadn’t exactly been something we’d covered in any class I’d ever taken.

Since I couldn’t explain my ignorance with words, I tried a shrug and a confused expression, shaking my head back and forth. He frowned, his shriveled wings twitching against the clear surface of the cell wall. I saw his coiled appendages at his spine unfurl slightly, then curl tight again.

Then I figured “what the hell?”

I had nothing better to do, so I tried some charades.