The Clone’s Mate by Susan Trombley

Nineteen

Nirgal didn’t speak to me again. Not that day, nor the next, nor the next. No matter how long I sat in waiting silence while Subject 34 hunted in the maze, I heard nary a peep from him.

I suppose there wasn’t much he needed to say to me, but that hadn’t stopped him from yammering constantly before. After probably a week had passed when I realized I had actually begun to miss his voice, I started up with very deliberate needling, in the hopes that I could anger him into speaking to me.

My efforts were met with more silence. He also didn’t send anything else to me through the maze, nor comment on my sketches, which had almost filled the book by this time. I’d drawn Ilyan several more times, quite openly, hoping he would make a comment, even if it were a mean one. I’d even drawn the darker side of Ilyan’s expressions—the coldest and most unnerving one.

The stare of a man who would murder countless innocents over an insult.

The very idea made me shiver, and it also made me regret my hasty words to Nirgal. As horrible as it was to imagine torturing some poor male until he cracked just to learn why it happened in the hopes of curing the resulting condition, was it worse than allowing the condition to persist, when it could lead to the creation of such monsters? The kind capable of killing tens of thousands, maybe even millions, without batting an eye?

The old question of sacrificing one life to save many was one I’d never been able to ponder for too long. I hated that moral quandary and figured better people than me should be the ones to make such decisions.

Not that I thought Nirgal and his fellow scientists were better than me, morally. Far from it. I had no doubt Subject 34 hadn’t been created with peaceful intentions. He was clearly designed to be a killer. Perhaps his unique biochemistry could provide some benefits to others, but I doubted the Iriduan empire cared about doing so. At least not in a meaningful way that countermanded the destruction they would make Subject 34 cause.

I didn’t know the whole story of why they felt they needed him. Nirgal had never responded to those kinds of questions, not that I’d asked a whole lot of useful questions of him. In fact, he’d been the one interrogating me most of them time. He knew my favorite foods and I didn’t even know his last name.

Or if he had one.

Or if his species used them.

Hell, I didn’t know much at all about the Iriduans. I only knew they were called that from our last conversation. I’d shown zero interest in them. That probably worked to his benefit, leaving me in the dark about what I was up against, but in retrospect, it had been shortsighted of me to blabber on and on about myself and not even ask a few questions in return.

I’ll admit, I felt a little sheepish for being so self-focused. It’s difficult to consider anything other than yourself when your life is always potentially in danger. Not from Subject 34. I didn’t feel any fear about him. I did, however, fear the scientists keeping us captive. Clearly, they didn’t have ethical limits, if they could even consider torturing a victim without dismissing the idea outright.

Also clearly, they seemed desperate enough to try drastic measures if they thought they would work, which explained why I was even in this enclosure with Subject 34. I couldn’t see any other reason why getting him so attached to me would benefit them unless they’d needed information about him so badly that allowing him to bond with a fellow test subject had been worth the risk.

Thirty-four sensed my growing depression and correctly guessed the cause of it. He glared at the Nirgal wall frequently now, and even paced in front of it several times in agitation.

“Nirgal speak,” he’d demanded on more than one occasion.

Even that had gotten no response from Nirgal, who’d been so determined to get Subject 34 to speak directly to him. Now, he’d apparently changed his mind, and even Thirty-four didn’t like this prolonged silence from our captor.

Though we still made love frequently, with me growing ever closer to him, definitely feeling as if I might just be in love with the monster guy, a pall settled over our days as Nirgal failed to communicate at all.

I loved being with Subject 34, and I enjoyed sketching him, and I loved talking to him, though he rarely had much to say in return.

Okay, I loved him.

There wasn’t much question about that. I knew it was foolish to let myself get so attached to him, particularly in our circumstances. There was no way our captors, Nirgal included, would let us live “happily ever after” spending every moment of the rest of our lives in this enclosure. The Iriduans had a plan for Subject 34, and I was pretty certain I wasn’t to be a permanent part of it.

If Nirgal would just talk to me, I might have been able to coax some information out of him that could prepare me for the inevitable, but as it was, weeks passed without another word from the guy.

Then the day arrived that the scientists and their mechs came for me.

They were ready to separate us. Apparently, they’d gained all the information they wanted to gain from their observations of us together. What they planned to do with me, I didn’t know, but I had no doubt it wouldn’t be good when a bio-suited alien entered the enclosure through the anteroom vault door, escorted by a squad of mechs.

They’d tried to lure Subject 34 away with a hunt in the maze, but he wasn’t having it that day, and it was almost like he’d sensed they would come for me. He burst into motion the minute the vault door opened, charging towards the alien entering like he would tear him to shreds.

Then he shrieked in agony, which sent me running to his side as he jerked to a stop, then fell to the sand, writhing in pain. His upper claws clutched at his head as his back arched up off the ground. His clawed toes curled downwards, his stingers whipping angrily from his back. His wings kicked up sand as he continued to spin and writhe, chittering and shrieking in agony.

“Stop it!” I screamed, lunging at the alien, who stood with a hand pressed to a device on his wrist that I knew was causing 34 so much pain.

The alien thrust me aside, knocking me to the ground. I struck the sand with a muffled “oof.” Then the alien turned his cold, fuchsia gaze towards me.

“Tilhur! Where is Nirgal?” I demanded, jumping back to my feet as I brushed sand off my mended sweatpants.

I flinched with every scream from Subject 34, but kept my focus on the Iriduan, knowing that I had to convince him to stop this, since neither 34 nor I could attack him effectively.

To my relief, he shifted his finger on the device, and whatever was causing Subject 34 so much pain ended, but quickly resumed when 34 tried to move towards him again.

Tilhur took a quick step backwards at 34’s lunge, and I noted that his fingers shook as he reactivated whatever device caused the agonizing pain, sending 34 back to the sand with another shriek.

“Do not attempt your wiles on me, human,” Tilhur said in a shaken voice, splitting his attention between me and 34. “I will not be swayed like Subject 34 and Nirgal.”

My brows lifted as I eyed him. “Nirgal? Where is he?”

Tilhur’s chuckle sounded so cold that the hairs on my nape rose. “He’s serving science in another way now, since it appears he has lost his reason.”

“What are you talking about?” I said breathlessly, a terrible feeling in my already sinking stomach. “What did you do to Nirgal?”

Tilhur jerked his head towards 34 and the mechs surrounded him, blocking me from seeing him. “Nirgal attempted to betray his people because of you and your constant blathering. For that crime, he has become part of an experiment. He might fracture. He might not. There’s no way to tell beforehand, so we’ll just torture him until he does—or dies. Honestly, I don’t care, either way. He has always been an obstacle to my advancement.”

I shook my head, both shocked and appalled at his words. I actually feared for Nirgal now. “Are any of you Iriduans ever good? Or are you truly evil space fairies?”

Tilhur huffed in indignation. “Don’t bother trying to play on my sense of guilt like you did with Professor Nirgal. I have a stronger will than he did. I will not be convinced by your ignorant ramblings about ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ Our research will improve the lives of the Iriduan people. Nothing else matters but that.”

Had I actually gotten through to Nirgal? And if I had, it seemed that I’d doomed him to a horrible fate. One probably far worse than the one even I faced.

Tilhur didn’t leave me in suspense about my own fate. As he fiddled with his wrist device and the mechs surrounded an enraged Subject 34 he continued to speak.

“Subject 34 must be reprogrammed now because of Professor Nirgal’s ill-advised efforts to better understand his attachment to you. However, I believe we can speed along that reprogramming by forcing him to eliminate you. Once you are out of the way, this obsession he appears to have for you will fade as fast as the taste of your blood in his mouth. Then we can get back to the important work we’ve been doing with him.”

“He would never hurt me!” I shouted at the cold-blooded bastard.

His laugh raised the hairs on my neck as he tapped away at his wrist thing. Subject 34 suddenly lurched to his feet, chittering mournfully. I could tell each halting step he took towards me was a battle for him, but there was no question he was advancing at Tilhur’s will rather than his own.

“We have always had control over him,” Tilhur said in a smug tone. “He will kill you. He may not like doing it, but eventually, he’ll recover—or we’ll do a flash of his memory using the chip. He’ll get over you either way, though I’d rather avoid the memory flash, since he did advance his communication ability after spending this time with you.”

I held up both hands as Subject 34 moved closer, shifting my attention between him and Tilhur’s wrist device. “Thirty-four, fight this bastard! I know you can!”

“Thirty-four fight,” he said in a mournful tone, and for a moment, I had some hope as he tried to turn his body towards one of the mechs trailing him.

“We aren’t having a repeat of Thrax,” Tilhur muttered as his fingers flew over the wrist device.

I shifted closer to the evil alien as I backed away from Subject 34, my heart breaking as I saw how much he struggled against the control of the chip.

Control he ultimately couldn’t break.

He turned back towards me with a moan of agony, his stingers coiling at his sides, their tips dripping with venom.

When I turned towards the vault door, Tilhur chuckled. “Where will you run to, human? There are an army of mechs just beyond that door. You won’t get anywhere. Accept your fate. If you truly care about Subject 34, make this easier on him. Each time he resists the control of the chip, it causes him intense pain.”

The last thing I wanted was to cause Subject 34 pain. It crushed me to see him so tormented as each of his steps dragged through the sand in his slow advance towards me. I knew how fast Subject 34 could move. If he weren’t fighting the chip, I would already be dead. I might not have even had a chance to blink before he killed me in that case.

But he was fighting, for all he was worth, which gave me time, though it still left me little options. Tilhur was right. Running wouldn’t do me any good. One of those creepy mechs would just catch me and hold me in place until Tilhur forced Subject 34 to kill me and then eat my corpse.

I tried not to think about the fact that I would soon be in the stomach of my lover. Would they have to flash his memory to make him forget the horrifying act of eating me? Or would his insectoid nature end up drowning out the sweet, loving person I’d seen take shape in these last weeks in my company?

What would all of this do to Subject 34 in the end? No matter what, he’d remain a slave to bastards like Tilhur, and someday, those bastards would send him out to kill other people.

Innocent people, probably.

And all the while, the one Iriduan I’d apparently convinced to reconsider his actions would be tortured until he either fractured or died. Nirgal could be no help to me here, and I tried not to think about what nightmare he now endured. Perhaps he deserved some of it for what he’d put so many others through, myself included, but I was a strong believer in redemption. If he’d tried to undo some of the damage he’d done, then he wasn’t completely lost to the darkness that a creature like Tilhur seemed to embrace gleefully.

I had wanted Nirgal to find a conscience, and it seemed like I might have guided him to it. Yet, my efforts led to his own downfall. Just like humanizing Subject 34 might have been the worst thing I could have done to him, because I knew he would suffer for having to destroy me.

I moved a few steps closer to the door, Subject 34 mere steps away from me now.

Tilhur chuckled, clearly enjoying my fear and indecisiveness. And here I’d thought Nirgal was the sadistic one. I could tell I wouldn’t be getting through to Tilhur at all. I’d seen the signs of emotion in Nirgal from the start, which was why I’d been able to get under his skin in the first place, but Tilhur—he was a cold bastard through and through. There was nothing I could touch inside him, no heart the most impassioned plea could move.

So I didn’t feel a lick of remorse when I lunged at him, throwing all my weight behind my charge as I slammed into him.

He was tall and lean, like Nirgal, and apparently delicate because he crashed to the sand like a fallen tree, yelping upon impact. Then he cried out in pain as my full weight came down on top of him. Granted, he hadn’t been bracing himself, clearly not expecting me to attack him instead of trying to run for my life.

What an idiot! That’s what you get for underestimating the intelligence of an “ape-blood.” Give me no other choice but to attack or die, and I’m attacking like a battering ram.

I smashed my fist into his helmet, then winced as it rocked back from the hard surface that definitely wasn’t as vulnerable as it looked. I pinned his body to the sand though, and his feeble struggles were almost laughable. Clearly, he’d been skipping the gym. I wasn’t exactly a gym rat myself, but I had a significant number of pounds on him, and he was—quite frankly—a total wuss.

I kneed him in the groin, hoping that would help incapacitate him as he struggled to reach his wrist device with his other hand. He grunted in pain as I drove me knee up into his groin once, then a second time, causing him to buckle with a low moan, his eyes slamming shut. He gagged, the sound amplified by the speaker in his helmet.

Still, he tried to touch the wrist device, which had apparently paused Subject 34, because my lover stood frozen in place, all the mechs also on pause around him. I had to guess they’d been brought in here to guard against 34 attacking Tilhur, and the dumbass hadn’t even considered little ol’ me turning the tables on him.

Still, I knew it wouldn’t be long before whoever was observing all this from beyond the enclosure got over their surprise and reactivated 34, so I swiped my own fingers across the wrist device.

“Don’t fight it, 34!” I shouted. “Strike me dead!” I looked up into his blank, outer eyes. “Trust me, baby! Because I trust you.”

He still moved slow enough that I could act as he charged me and Tilhur, both of us struggling on the sand. Bracing my back foot on the ground, I buried my knee in Tilhur’s stomach and with a heave that took all my strength, I rolled us over until he was on top of me. In that same moment, Subject 34’s stinger struck, burying fully into Tilhur’s back.

The Iriduan sagged on top of me as Subject 34 struck a second time, my vulnerable self covered by Tilhur’s surprisingly heavy corpse. I frantically swiped on the wrist device to shut off the “kill” command.

My efforts brought up a series of symbols that I didn’t have any hope of reading. I also didn’t dare trying any of them, lest I force something worse than a kill code on Subject 34.

Like causing him pain again.

What I did see, much to my surprise, was a shutdown code. I recognized it because it matched the one that had been on the machine used to draw samples from my body. I’d seen it flash when the machine was complete. Like a “power off” button, it had a distinctive and recognizable design that no doubt existed on every electronic device these aliens used.

I worried that I’d cause something terrible to happen to Subject 34 by pushing it, but right now, he was paused again, and I heard sounds of alarm echoing from within Tilhur’s helmet that told me someone somewhere intended to act. I pushed the button, and the device stopped glowing, all the symbols disappearing.

Suddenly, I heard the deafening sounds of machines being torn apart, along with a victorious shriek from Subject 34.

Then Tilhur’s body lifted off me, and Subject 34 dropped him unceremoniously at his feet before bending to take my hand in his lower hand to pull me back onto my feet.

“Rhonda safe?”

I nodded, swallowing thickly. Adrenaline was pumping. I would break down later, I supposed, but for the moment, I was still in peril. We’d escaped Tilhur, and a glance around showed me that Subject 34 had made quick work of the mechs.

Like, really quick work. It was a bit intimidating how rapidly he’d dismantled the robots. To my surprise, he bent again to snatch the wrist device off Tilhur’s arm. I grabbed his lower hand when he lifted it to touch the screen of the wrist device.

“No, 34! We don’t know what those symbols mean. You could end up hurting yourself if you turn it back on!”

He cupped my cheek with one of his upper hands. Then he touched the screen, bringing the symbols back up. His body tensed as the device activated, but his claws moved rapidly over the symbols.

“They taught you to read their language!” I slowly shook my head. “For brilliant scientists, they aren’t that smart.”

His fingers scratched over the device, bringing up symbols so rapidly that they blurred before my eyes. Then he brought up something that looked like a map of some sort. He seemed to study it for several long moments as I anxiously bounced on the balls of my feet, my gaze returning to the vault door again and again as I waited to be swarmed.

It had probably only been a few minutes since we’d overcome Tilhur, and Subject 34 was moving fast, but I knew the other scientists had to have a remote control for 34. They weren’t the most cunning folks, but they couldn’t have been stupid enough to send the only control device into the enclosure without making sure they had a backup.

Whatever the case might be, 34 clearly had his own thoughts about it.

Suddenly, part of his head chitin fell off. I freaked out about it. I’ll admit. What seemed to be a part of his skull just popped right off his head.

Then I saw pulsing brain matter exposed where that chitin had been and I screamed, rushing to snatch up the chitin to press it back into his hands. One of his pincers extended as he lifted his upper hand, and I shouted in alarm when he used the tips of it to prod at his brain.

“What the fuck, 34! Stop that! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

He held me off with his other upper hand, his lower hands busy with the wrist device. His pincer delved deeper into his squishy, gory looking brain matter, then he withdrew something shiny, blinking, and trailing little wires.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna faint!” I said with a horrified gasp. “Did you just perform brain surgery on yourself to remove the control chip?”

Yeah. Yeah, he did.

He tossed aside the chip and I spared only a quick glance at where the bloody thing fell in the sand before I insistently pressed the piece of head chitin back into his hands.

“How do you know you won’t get an infection?” I didn’t bother to hide the worry in my voice.

“They come,” he said without answering my question as he pushed the head chitin back over his exposed brain.

It made a clicking sound, then seemed to fuse to the other plates covering his head, the seams formed by its separation rapidly disappearing, even as I heard the approach of reinforcements on the other side of the vault doors.