Mindlink (6 page)

The aliens disappeared without a word.

The new prisoner lay there, crumpled and unmoving, just inside
the opening of his cell. He’d probably been blinded, as she and Natalie had
been, and might be scared too.

“Looks like one of their own,” Natalie whispered with a nod at
the prisoner.

Ashley winced. Yeah, he wasn’t naked. How could she have not
realized he was an alien? Maybe he deserved to be scared. “I’m not sure if it’s
better or worse to find out they treat their own species as badly as us.”

A groan snapped their attention back to the heap across the
hall. The prisoner stirred and rolled over, palm to his forehead. Agony twisted
his features.

“If you scoot back against the far wall, the pain isn’t as bad.
There’s like a sonic death ray surrounding the opening to the cells,” Ashley
told him in as loud of a whisper as she dared. She didn’t think the aliens cared
enough to come investigate if they heard the prisoners talking, but she’d prefer
not to give them a reason to start. “Oh, I guess I should ask if you speak
English first,” she threw in.

He lifted his head and peered at a spot above Ashley’s face,
eyes unfocused and glassy. “I am familiar with most common words,” the stranger
said.

Yep. Alien. He had the same bizarre accent as the talker from
when they’d first arrived. This alien wore the cookie-cutter uniform of the
other aliens, with one sleeve partially ripped from the jacket torso. A brown
streak marred the collar. They must take clothes from just humans, then.

So, he was the enemy. She summoned up some serious hatred, but
he was hurt and abandoned and she couldn’t hang onto it. He
was
the enemy, but also an enemy of his own people and therefore
worth befriending. Maybe he knew how to get out of here.

“The blindness is temporary, but it takes a while to wear off.”
Ashley inched closer, and recoiled as pressure increased between her temples.
Natalie had said the closer she got, the more it would hurt, but she’d
forgotten. She scooted a half foot back.

“That is excellent information.”

What a mix of inflection. Hanging out with Hugh for such a good
chunk of time had filled her quota of boring British accents. The alien’s was as
interesting as it was bizarre. She practiced it under her breath so she could
add it to her repertoire.

In a move more graceful than it should have been, he
crab-walked to the back wall. Though hurt and blind, he never hesitated or
bumbled once, like he’d known exactly where to go. “What is a ‘death ray’?” he
asked once he’d settled.

Ashley laughed. Out of all the things she’d said, he focused on
that? “It’s something from old science-fiction movies. Aliens come to earth,
bent on world domination, and conquer humans with weapons that shoot laser beams
of death.”

Natalie elbowed her in the ribs and widened her eyes in nearly
comical shock. “You’re
talking
to an alien,” she
mouthed.

And she’d forgotten again he wasn’t human. “I mean, it’s just a
story. I’m sure you don’t have anything like that,” Ashley amended lamely.
“What’re you in for?”

“In for?” he repeated, rubbing the back of his neck and rolling
his shoulders. “I do not understand the question.”

As he rotated his head, light beamed across his features. Wow,
he was so...not repulsive. Angular jaw, high cheekbones and aquiline nose,
nicely arranged and different enough from his fellow aliens to make him
distinctive. His light brown hair was shaved in a military buzz cut, like all
the other aliens. On him, it wasn’t as severe and refined his face, as if the
style had been designed especially for this alien.

If she’d been in Vegas, she’d bet his eyes were hazel. An
alien, freaky sort of hazel.

“What did you do to get in here?” Ashley waved at their
luxurious surroundings and then remembered he couldn’t see. She dropped her
hand. “Rob a bank?”

His mouth twitched. “I did nothing to the banks of the Darwa.
The river is not safe.”

Was that a joke? Natalie shrugged at her quizzical glance, so
she let it go. Drawing her knees up, she rested her forehead but the ache behind
her eyes wouldn’t go away.

“Are you one of the Mora Tuwa?” he called after a while.

Ashley lifted her head. Natalie had fallen asleep, curled in a
defensive ball in the corner. “Depends. What’s that?” she asked.

“From Earth. A human.”

“That’s what you call us? Mora Tuwa? It sounds like a cousin to
yellow fin tuna.”
Sushi
. Ashley’s eyes almost rolled
back in her head as she envisioned platter after platter of rainbow rolls, sweet
eel. The way her stomach growled, even ahi wouldn’t get kicked off her
plate.

“Tuna is a fish,” he said, but it sounded almost like a
question.

“Yeah, it is. And I guess I’m a whatever you call humans. What
are you?” she asked. He didn’t look like a lizard but maybe the reptile part was
underneath his skin.

“A citizen of the Telhada.” He snapped it out like a SEAL
stating name, rank and serial number upon capture by enemy insurgents.

Telhada was the name Rhonda the Betrayer had told them to call
their “hosts.”

Well, they could get used to being called aliens. She squared
her shoulders. What else could they possibly do to her if they didn’t like
it?

Frowning, she tried to find a more comfortable position but
hard ground and no butt did not equal comfortable. She’d give anything for a
Snickers bar. The fat would be burned off by the shivering alone. “Do you have a
name?”

He hesitated and she narrowed one eye. “Too hard of a
question?” she asked. Maybe the aliens didn’t have names.

“I am
ZXQ
-
One
.”

She snorted. “That’s not a name, that’s a model number. I think
I ordered something online with that exact one. Do Telhadas not have real
names?”

“I am not a Telhada. The Telhada is the ruling class to whom
all citizens of Alhedis pledge loyalty and obedience. Only the noble members of
the Telhada have proper names.” He rubbed his forehead and blinked hard. It
looked like his vision was coming back. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“You started it.” She reeled back her temper and the edge to
her voice. Attacking him wasn’t going to get her anywhere. “Well, I’m not
calling you
ZXQ
-
One
,
like you’re a Terminator or something. My friend Sam played an alien in a movie
and you look a little bit like him, so that’s what I’m going to call you.”

Sam suited him better anyway. A good, upstanding name for a
solid sort of guy. Even if he was on the thinner side, he had a responsible air
about him like he never forgot to file his taxes or fill up his car with gas. A
guy named Sam was dependable and never late for anything. “So, Sam it is. My
friend Sam’s alien movie grossed—”

“You also talk a lot.”

Okay. Of course he wasn’t impressed by who she knew. Unless her
fellow prisoner had drinks three times a week with the head guy around here, she
wouldn’t be impressed by who he knew either.

“Occupational hazard, I suppose.” Everyone in L.A. talked a
lot, usually without saying anything. If she’d wanted to get a word in edgewise,
she’d had to learn to speak up, be funny, be brilliant. Be
something
or be forgotten. Most of the time she’d had to settle for
outrageous because she never knew what to say. “Are you starting to see lines
and shapes and stuff?”

They couldn’t escape if he couldn’t see. Although he hadn’t
given the impression he knew enough about anything to get them out of here.

“I am.”

“Are you going to talk like that all the time? Like you have a
stick up—” She broke off. Maybe aliens didn’t have regular human-type butts, and
she didn’t want to find out what they did have instead. “Never mind. Can you see
me? I’m the redhead.”

She waved and her breasts jiggled. He raised an eyebrow and she
thought he was about to make a comment about her being naked.

But instead, he stated matter-of-factly, “I do not see
color.”

Her mouth almost fell open. Maybe the aliens
were
closer to lizards. Weren’t they colorblind too?
Except for the chameleons—they’d have to see color to change back and forth.
Wouldn’t they? Now she was confused and making her headache worse. “At all? Are
all aliens colorblind?”

His brow wrinkled. “It is not blindness. I see black and white
only. I believe the Telhada see color but I have not asked.”

“Why do these Telhada people get to see stuff and have real
names? What makes them so special?”

Now this was what she’d envisioned when Senator Blanchard told
her aliens had invited the people on the list to their planet for an exchange of
ideas and cultural norms. A back-and-forth Q&A session, maybe with a large
round table and a PowerPoint presentation. Of course, she’d expected to be in
the company of other scientists and speaking to her memorized area of
expertise.

At no point had she practiced how to butter up an alien
prisoner.

“The Telhada descended from the Ancestors and rule by divine
right. They are wise and benevolent leaders,” Sam said reverently.

Ashley smirked. “Not so benevolent if you’re in here. Why don’t
you use your one phone call to ask your precious Telhadas to get you out?”

“I do not wish to talk anymore.” Irritation laced the
statement.

Obviously, her dialogue could use some work.

He lay down and covered his head with his arms. She’d almost
gotten used to the headache but could see how someone new to the whole thing
might be overwhelmed. At this stage, she’d liken it to a monster hangover. If
she could get some wheat-grass juice, everything would be fine...

Without having registered falling asleep, she woke with a
start, and urgently needed that bathroom escort. Her bladder felt like it had
grown one size too small. Since a hall monitor didn’t magically appear, she
pushed away thoughts of falling water, her designer bathroom at home and the
size of their cell.

Natalie stirred but didn’t wake up. Ashley peered out the cell
opening. The alien, Sam, watched her with a hooded expression. She shivered—and
not from the temperature—when their eyes met. A part of her flinched at the
visceral shock of awareness and she flicked it off as exhaustion, extreme duress
and being exposed. She refused—
refused
—to examine
the other part, the fragment that found him intriguing and not as frightening or
indifferent as his fellow aliens.

Time to shut that down fast and get some use out of her new
friend. “Do you know what’s going to happen to us?” she asked.

“We are scheduled to be recycled.”

She blinked. “Recycled? Like
plastic-churned-up-into-little-bits recycled?”

“All organic material may be reused for various purposes,” he
said, as if quoting from a textbook.

Panic fluttered under her ribcage. “When?” she squeaked.

“This evening we celebrate a religious event, The Festival of
the Ancestors, and no recycling is scheduled. Nothing is more important than
honoring the Ancestors, who guide us in this life from their esteemed place in
the afterlife. We will be taken to the recycling chamber in the morning.”

Whatever. A bunch of dead aliens weren’t nearly as important as
a dead Ashley. “What happens? How does it work?”

“The chamber’s robotics are designed to efficiently remove
tissue and organs for use in the research division. Some material is
reconstituted for utilization in common goods and the remainder enriches crops.
It is beneficial for all citizens.”

Her mind flashed through a scene from
Schindler’s
List
and she shuddered. The recycling chamber
sounded like something she’d prefer to continue imagining instead of seeing in
real life. “You’re not bothered by this? Is there some special way to recycle
organic material and not like, kill it?”

“The recycling process halts brain activity. I intend to serve
my sentence with dignity. Why would this bother me?” He seemed puzzled as if
being turned into a research project was some big honor.

“Because you’ll be dead!” she countered. “You know. The
opposite of alive. I have a lot of stuff left to do before I’d go quietly to be
recycled. And what did we do to deserve this? You guys invited us here. We came
in good faith.” She eyed Sam. “By the way, how do you know English so well? You
have more than a passing familiarity with it.”

“Occupational hazard.”

She glared at him. “Are you mocking me?” Just because he always
seemed to have the right words on the tip of his tongue didn’t entitle him to
make fun of her script.

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly but he was far too
severe of a guy to mistake it for a genuine smile. “I do not mock. My position
requires me to know many languages.”

Mollified, she relaxed her righteous ramrod-straight position.
“What do you do at your job?”

“Acquisitions. What is your position?”

“I’m a world-famous actress. I’ve appeared in dozens of films,
and when I return to Earth, I’ll be playing the lead in a film produced by
Renner. Oh. I guess the whole recycling thing is gonna put a huge crimp in
that.” God, it was nearly impossible to stay in character when the very mention
of dying shot sparks of terror through her heart.

What would Ashley V do now? She started to squeeze out a few
tears but then reconsidered. Aliens probably didn’t cry. She needed to get a
bead on her audience if she wanted to be at all effective.

“Actress?” He stumbled over the pronunciation as he spit out
the word. “What does this mean?”

“Oh, I guess you must not have movies here.” She struggled to
find the words to explain movies and Hollywood as an industry to someone who
didn’t understand the concept. “I pretend to be different people in made up
situations and someone films it. Then other people pay money to watch me.”