Deceit: BBW Alien Lottery Romance (Chosen by the Karal Book 1)
Read Deceit: BBW Alien Lottery Romance (Chosen by the Karal Book 1) Online
Authors: Harmony Raines
Tags: #General Fiction
Chapter Twenty - The Hierarchy
Chosen By The Karal
(Book One)
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Note from the author:
My books are written, produced and edited in the UK where spellings and word usage can vary from U.S. English. The use of quotes in dialogue and other punctuation can also differ.
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All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written consent of the author or publisher.
This is a work of fiction and is intended for mature audiences only. All characters within are eighteen years of age or older. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, actual events or places is purely coincidental.
© 2015 Harmony Raines
Silver Moon Erotica
Kindle Edition
“Come on, Elissa, it’s about to start.” Reja’s voice came from the sitting room, where the new lottery, top prize becoming an alien baby machine, was about to be aired through the TV. Elissa had refused to join the huge crowds out on the streets watching it on the big colourful screens in a party like atmosphere. These screens streamed adverts and TV shows 24/7, they had been christened, “Streams”, because they never stopped. An endless trickle of noise and bright colours in a grey dying world.
Elissa saw no reason to celebrate. “Reja, I told you, I have no interest in watching them choose which poor, unfortunate woman is going to be fed to a Karalian.”
Elissa stood in her small kitchen, more interested in watching the kettle as it came to the boil, hoping there was enough gas. Simulated coffee, or SimCoff, was only just bearable to her taste buds when it was hot. If the water only reached lukewarm, it verged on disgusting, although they still drank it for the caffeine buzz. She was sure the gas supply company knew this and redirected the supply just before the temperature reached “drinkable.”
“You know Elissa! There is nothing good about the Karal in her eyes.” Tikki’s voice had reached an excited high pitch, one which Elissa hadn’t heard for years. Her sister, so similar in looks, was quite different in her views towards the aliens who came from the planet Karal. She saw them through the eyes of a child needing a saviour, whereas Elissa saw them as a superior race who wanted to use what was left of the Earth, mainly its people, for their own gain. They reminded her of the slavers of old, and despite their words, she knew they were only biding their time before they made their move to take over the Earth.
“And I have yet to be proved wrong, Tikki.” Elissa saw the first wisps of steam coming from the kettle. Maybe this was her lucky day; she might even be able to have some warm food tonight. It had been days since the gas had been reliable enough to cook food. If cold SimCoff was bad, a dinner ruined by an outage was even worse. There was barely enough food to go round as it was, without it being spoiled by only being half-baked.
“Come on; get into the fun of things. Some lucky woman is about to be swept off her feet and taken to Karal, where she will be given food and clothes, enough for the rest of her life.” Tikki clapped her hands together, signifying the draw was about to start.
“And fresh air, don’t forget the fresh air,” said Reja. She took a theatrically deep breath, as if she could actually smell it.
Elissa couldn’t help but smile, yet still she said sarcastically, “And all you have to do is marry one of the aliens.”
“Goodness, Elissa, have you seen them? I would
die
for one of the Karal to welcome me into his bed.”
“Maybe that’s what will happen. You know, when you give birth to the alien spawn.”
“They said it was perfectly safe,” Tikki insisted, not letting Elissa dampen her mood.
“So why do they need us? I mean if it is perfectly safe, why do they need human women at all. Where are all their own females?” The kettle whistled. She took it off the gas stove and looked at the oven, trying to decide whether to light it now. Although totally unfounded, she always thought that if you switched the gas off, it was instantly diverted somewhere else. It could be days until the supply was this stable again.
“Here it is—the draw is about to happen. Oh my goodness, I can’t believe someone is about to be chosen to go and live with aliens,” Reja said.
“Oh, look, there’s one now. He’s going to press the button. How romantic, he’s about to choose the woman he’s going to spend the rest of his life with.”
“That’s not him. He’s different to the one who was on TV yesterday,” Reja said.
“They all look the same to me. Aren’t they the most handsome thing you have ever seen, all muscles and dark brooding looks?”
Elissa listened to her sister’s excited chatter; Tikki definitely had a fixation on the Karal. She had been so disappointed when she heard she was too young to enter the lottery to be an alien mate. Lucky her. The rest of the female population had gone mad. When the first lottery station had opened, two young women had been killed in the stampede.
Then there were those like Elissa who had their own reasons for not entering, reasons that none of her friends or family knew about, and she wanted to keep it that way. If anyone here knew her secret, she might well find herself thrown in a police cell charged with speciesism. It was a life she had put behind her when she moved back to her home town and not something she wanted to be reminded of. Although that was hard when everyone was talking about the Karal and how they had come to save the human race.
The chatter in the other room reached fever pitch. She concentrated on pouring the boiling water into three cups, glad that the hype would be over soon. The Karal were planning on one of these lottery-style draws every month, to begin with. Once this was over, there would be a lull in excitement before the next lottery opened.
Stirring the coffee, she placed the cups on a tray and carried them into the small sitting room. The draw was over; the host was filling in time while they cycled through the billions of ID pictures of the contestants, the strain almost leaving the studio with a power outage. Lights flickered, giving the images boosted into the room from the TV an almost strobe-light effect.
Elissa imagined the power company must have been struggling to maintain the grid. If the hype was to be believed, every home on the planet was probably tuned into the show. This would create the biggest surge for decades. No doubt the grid would be switched off later to conserve resources. The city would be dark; crime would shoot up as the surveillance cameras crashed. Elissa took it as another reason to hate the Karal. All this over a dumb lottery.
“Come on, what’s taking so long?” Tikki said, her face resting in her hands as she leaned in towards the TV.
“Just switch it off, it won’t be anyone we know,” said Elissa, tired of the whole thing. She had her reasons for wanting to forget about aliens, ones that were anchored deep in her soul. But she had turned away from the shame and pain; it was a road she no longer went down. Gone were her days spent protesting over the Karals, they were here to stay. Now she kept her head down and worked hard. Her past was her past.
“A couple more minutes,” Tikki insisted.
“What shall we do later? I’m guessing we’ll have to find some way to cheer you two losers up.” She handed a cup to Reja. But Reja simply looked at her, open mouthed. “What?”
“Oh my goodness.” Tikki’s face was red, flushed with excitement.
“What?” But her eyes went to the TV, where, on a twenty-foot screen behind the presenter, her face, unsmiling as always, looked back at her. The tray slipped and the super-hot SimCoff spilled on her hands as she tried to comprehend how this could have happened.
“Elissa,” Reja cried, but her voice didn’t register, nor did the pain for the first few seconds; all she could see was herself being handed over to the Karalians. She knew this was no coincidence. Because she had never put her name in the lottery. Which meant it should never have been drawn.
It’s because they want to know what you know.
The answer was obvious, but then the pain of her burned skin brought her back to reality and she screamed, her friends rushing to her aid. Tikki pulled out her Tab and said, “Emergency”, an automated voice asked for details, and while she spoke, Reja pushed Elissa back to the kitchen to run her hands under cold water. Then she opened a can of morphalite and instantly drowned out the pain, spraying it over Elissa’s burnt skin.
While Reja dealt with her injured hands, wrapping them in a clean, old dish towel, all Elissa could think was
how did they know, how did they rig the lottery?
But of course, they had ways and means. Suddenly all that they had fought for, all the bad things she had been told about the Karal, became real.
This was their vengeance.
“Why don’t you go down and see if the paramedics are here?” Tikki said to Reja a few minutes later. The morphalite had worked its magic. Elissa’s hands had gone numb. But it wouldn’t last for long.
“Sure, but you should help Elissa downstairs. They won’t be pleased if they have to walk all the way up here,” Reja replied.
“Not when you’re a ‘skim,’” Elissa said acidly. “They don’t make as much out of poor people like us, they prefer the rich dudes living in their penthouses in their Oxydomes.” Tikki always liked to look at pictures of the ‘pents’; they lived in houses high above the pollution, or in Oxydomes, big spheres with their own atmosphere. She, like other young people, dreamed of being one of them. Dreamed of having the luxury of piped air enriched with oxygen. Elissa couldn’t blame her, but dreams were as close as people like her would ever get to living in the rich side of town.
“But you won’t have to worry about that, you’ll have all the free medical care and oxygen you can ever breathe when you go to Karal.” Reja said. “Oh my goodness, that’s what you should have told them—that Elissa is the lottery winner. They would have sent one of those brand-new shuttles the aliens gave to the hospital.”
“No,” said Tikki quickly. “Just go down and meet the paramedics. We’ll follow.”
Reja ran off, taking the stairs two at a time, until she hit two levels down and the air became thicker, then her footfalls slowed. Not enough oxygen in the air to keep her lungs working at the capacity she needed.
Elissa watched Tikki as she stood listening to this. Then Elissa said, “We should go; it’s going to take me a while to get down there.”
“I wanted Reja out of the way first,” Tikki replied.
Elissa felt a chill creep through her; the three of them usually shared everything, so why did Tikki want them to speak privately? “What’s on your mind, Tikki?” she asked, although her hands were beginning to throb once more.
“The lottery.”
“I don’t want to think about that yet,” Elissa said. She didn’t want to think about it at all.