A mask lay on the ebony bedside table; a white unbroken line, like a fine-boned china-doll blessed with grace and catty eyes. Beside the mask were one white rose petal and one, red that had fallen from the onyx vase above, a rosary and a riding crop. Across the room, a clock glowed ghostly green. Quiet had descended hours earlier - the kind that only sneaks in from under the door when the eyes close and the heart slows.
The heavy haired woman burrowed more deeply into her lover's embrace. She loved his arms, bands of corded muscled wrapped around her. Her hot breath whispered against sleepy skin. "I had a dream tonight. It was the strangest thing.” She stifled a yawn. The motion sent her thick braids tumbling over the edge of the bed. "I was driving home and just out of nowhere the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. I felt this other body sitting behind me in the car, heavy and breathing but when I turned around there was nobody there. What do you suppose it means?"
The woman's lover murmured something in response. She frowned in confusion,
"What?"
Wake up Imogen.
Imogen shot out of sleep with a strangled gasp.
"What?"
Her question sliced through the silent room with a sort of jagged abrasiveness that set her teeth on edge. The length and breath of minutes ticked away. The slowing thud of her startled heart gave voice to the slipping seconds. Her gaze leapt from the empty space beside her to the clock and back again. Ten minutes before midnight. The realization that she was alone left Imogen feeling oddly bereft. She couldn’t begin to explain how such a mundane imagining could leave her so shaken. She shrugged off the covers and got out of bed. She strolled silently down the stairs and through the kitchen. She paused, out of habit, to fill a kettle with water and set it on the stove. She tensed suddenly. She hesitated only for a brief moment before stepping out into the night. There was a sharp incline to the left of the house below which a ghostly strip of white sand fringed the somnolent Gulf of Mexico. She followed the rough path down to the beach.
He was waiting for her at the lacy edge of the shore. She stopped in her tracks. Her stomach quivered a bit at the sight of the tall, stoic figure. Violet eyes glimmered through the semi-dark as he turned to nod at her briefly. His eyes shifted back to the skies. She took her place at his side and studied him askance. The slight bluish tinge to his skin seemed irrationally odd. Everything about him seemed so cold and foreign.
"Is it because you’ve been in this place so long? I’ve heard of this happening to other implants, though I wonder how a mere five years could have been enough for you to have forgotten being anything other than human."
“I wasn’t aware that thought transfer was possible here.” She spoke out loud making it clear that she resented the mental intrusion. Speaking her native language sounded so odd to her ears.
Her visitor smiled slightly in acknowledgement of the indirect rejection.
“Forming ill-advised attachments has forever proven to be a problem among implants. There have been an unusual number of you exhibiting this complex on this particular assignment. I have to say though, this lack of enthusiasm is not something I would expect from a scout of your caliber.”
“Is this where you tell me your real reason for coming here?”
He looked at her strangely. “You know this is standard protocol. Secondary scouts must verify the status of implants before the operation is completed.”
“It’s happening now? Why wasn’t I informed?" Her eyes narrowed. "What’s the status of the other scouts?
“As I said, they’ve been irrevocably compromised. They became a problem.”
A few more seconds of silence passed.
“Are you going to be a problem Nayn?” He used that name deliberately.
For a fraction of a second, she almost couldn’t remember whose name it was.
“I have never abandoned my duty – even after…”
She didn’t dare say the rest. That she had fallen in love with this place and its people. That she didn’t believe they had any right to do what they were about to do. Any such admission would guarantee being branded a traitor or worse.
The sky lit up suddenly. Hundreds of thousands of tiny little lights like jittery swarms of fireflies drifted down to the earth. Eyes on the glittery sky, the man murmured in awe.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful Nayn?”
Her throat clogged. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t see this beauty he spoke of. All she saw was death raining down from the sky. It was ugly and abominable.
“How many times have we going to do this? Why? Explain it to me.”
Her superior’s atavic eyes glimmered as he turned the full intensity of his regretful stare upon her. His weapon, a small round device that fit snugly into the palm of his hand was trained on her. She hadn’t noticed it before. She finally understood why he was here. Why she hadn’t been informed that they would begin so soon. His question had been a test and she had failed miserably. There was no warning. She tasted blood before the burning in her chest registered.
“We take because it is our natural evolutionary right to do so. What does it matter what you feel? Like all the others - come morning, this world will be ours.”
As she fell to the ground, Imogen could hear the kettle’s faint whistle coming from the kitchen but that sound was soon overwhelmed by the distant roars of explosion after explosion.
She was dreaming again. In that dream, she was driving along a narrow winding road. She turned another sharp corner and suddenly she wasn’t alone. There it was again – that other body beside her. She turned to meet the violet eyes of a frightening creature brimming with violence and poison, near insanity. In the instant darkness swallowed her up, she finally remembered. Those eyes were hers.
© Tonya R. Moore
