A Cruel Universe

“Where I come from, we don’t take kindly to being abducted,” she snapped, glaring at her captors, two beings that resembled humans in shape only. Black spots dotted their pale pink skin—it reminded her of the wings of those lantern flies that the media had recently become so worried about. One of the beings had black eyes; the other, jungle-green. Both sets glared at her as if she’d killed their best friends.

She probably shouldn’t have made that remark, she told herself. She had already angered them by landing on their planet. Not that she’d meant to do so. She’d just wanted a quick spin around space to clear her head after a bad day—a phenomena that seemed the rule rather than the exception—but her ship had blown a gasket, hurling her into its desert, miles of orchid-purple sand under a daffodil-colored sky and pink clouds. She would have left as soon as she could repair her ship and explore the city beyond. They should have understood her desire for the latter; the metropolis looked like nothing any she’d seen before. It sported cylindrical alabaster and glass buildings framed by spindly, Saturn-like silver rings. One topped with a chrome-like ball on a stick shot a magenta laser at one of the clouds, and the cloud moved aside, revealing the sun. Others stood still. Still others slid up and down, a few even disappearing completely. Silver disks coasted like flies in the air around them. As she’d prepared to venture in, she’d heard a buzz, and everything had gone black.  

Next thing she knew, she’d found herself strapped to this stainless-steel table in a vacuous chamber framed in white ceramic tiles, black walls, and fluorescent panels bright enough to incinerate one’s corneas. Against several of the walls stood shelving units, also black, holding leather-bound books with titles in script that didn’t resemble any used on Earth, syringes, and glass flutes half-filled with translucent liquids of all colors. The air’s frigidity gnawed straight to her bones.

If beings as advanced as the city she’d seen suggested still operated like this, what did that say about the universe? She had thought humans the scum of it; other creatures must beat them by far, spiritually as well as technologically. This belief and the hope that she could, either in this lifetime or the next, live among them, had sustained her through her darkest hours. And now two polka-dotted freaks had snatched that away.

The green-eyed being turned to his cohort. “Think we should punish this stupidity, Niva?”

“We’ll let it go this time, Evis, but, if she tries it again, that’s it.”

The green-eyed being—Evis—scowled. “So you’re gonna put up with this, but you snap at me for breathing the wrong way?”

Niva rolled her eyes. “Always with the drama.”

Even in her distress, Janna had to carve out a minute to appreciate the odd familiarity; had she witnessed the audio of this exchange only, she would have thought it taking place between two humans.

Yet another grim development.

Evis rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this now.” He turned back to Janna. “You’re lucky, Janna. You’re about to be the subject of groundbreaking research.”

Her guts collapsed, the declaration conjuring memories of movies and TV shows about aliens abducting unsuspecting humans and using them as guinea pigs for horrific experiments. Sewing them together; messing with their brains; injecting them with serums that left them writhing in agony. She would die here, or end up wishing that she had.

No. The former, she would not allow, and the only way she would do the latter was while trying to escape. She just had to think of a strategy. Perhaps she could convince them to free her from her bindings and bolt. Could she make it to the door before they caught her? She didn’t know how fast they could run. And she didn’t know whether the door would open for her even if she did make it there in time; they may have locked it from the inside.

Perhaps, then, she should try a different tactic. Perhaps she could convince them to take her outside. This would probably prove difficult, for, as their city had made clear, these beings were not by any means stupid. If they did believe her, she would have to somehow slip out of their grip. If, by some miracle, that worked, too, she would have to take yet another risk: Her ship had sustained serious damage in the crash, and she couldn’t fix it on her own. Thus, she would have to go into the city and hope that the beings there treated her far more kindly than these two. It seemed a long shot, but she didn’t have time to think of a better idea; Evis sauntered to one of the bookshelves and procured a syringe filled with translucent gray liquid. It could be anything, and she couldn’t afford to find out what.

Stomach heaving its contents into her throat, she said, “Don’t do this, Evis. Please, let me go.”

 “Not gonna happen,” Evis said, stepping closer.

She stiffened, guts twisting, heartbeat as fast as a magazine’s gunshots. She tugged at her bindings, but they didn’t budge.

“You’re gonna be a part of history, Janna,” Niva said, eyes glittering like those of a psychopath on the heels of her first kill. “The first person to undergo a transformation like this, if this works out. Isn’t that exciting?”

Before Janna could reply, Evis, spearing his partner with a glare, hissed, “Watch your big mouth, Niva.”

Niva shrugged. “She’s gonna find out, anyway.”

“If this works.”

“And, if not, it’s a moot point.”

Though Janna had recognized it as a very real possibility, hearing it confirmed aloud hit her like a cannonball to the chest. The force propelled the words from her mouth: “I need to show you something outside.”

Evis’s expression soured. “You can’t possibly think we’re that stupid.”

Before she could reply, the door burst open, and in rushed another being—a being far different from Evis and Niva. It, too, had a humanoid shape, but, rather than spots, it sported yellow and black stripes, its eyes brown and lacking the biting cold of theirs. In its hands, it held a gun that looked as if fashioned from a stainless steel pipe, a ball on its end—a smaller version of that that had shot the laser that moved the clouds—and a trigger. Janna screamed; Evis and Niva cursed.

The striped being aimed at Evis and Niva and pulled the trigger. A screech pierced the air, followed by a flash. When it cleared, and she’d blinked away its shadow, Janna saw Evis and Niva lying on the floor, heads jerking but bodies as still as stones, as if they couldn’t get up.

“You cannot be here,” the striped being told them.

“Where do you expect us to go?” Evis demanded, head still jerking.

“That is for you to decide,” the other being said. “We will take you wherever you want to go. But you cannot stay here. What is to say you will not destroy this planet like you destroyed yours?”

           “We didn’t come to ‘destroy’ anything,” Niva growled. “We’re refugees.”

“Call it whatever you want,” the other being said. “It is not going to change anything.”

The gears in Janna’s mind clicked. Evis and Niva had wanted to transform her. To use her as a guinea pig—a guarantee that disaster wouldn’t ensue when they used the technology on themselves. It made sense now.

The other being came to her. She laid her hands, two by two, on her restraints. They hissed. She removed her hands, and the buckles opened, freeing Janna. Janna sat up, feeling as if she’d run a marathon. “Please,” she panted. “Please, don’t hurt me. I just wanna go home.”

“We will make that happen,” the being said. “There is just one caveat: you will not remember having come here. As I said before, we have to protect ourselves.”

Her muscles, previously as rigid as hard pretzels, melted, and she took a full breath for the first time since waking on this table. She wanted to spring forward and fling her arms around the striped being. Instead, she settled for a simple, “Thank you,” and a smile.