HASH: Human Alien Species Hybrid (4 page)

“Actually, they want to kill us.”

I sucked air into my lungs and sat further back. “They? They who? And why?”

“The Institute.”

Jade stared blankly at Em. “You’re wrong. I don’t want you to talk to me right now because you’re wrong!”

“I’m not wrong and I can prove it to you. I was going through the computers in the building and I found it. Things they didn’t tell us. They were talking about removing the implant.”

“They’re always talking about removing the implant, Em.”

“Whether it kills you or not! Jade, you need to listen to me. Please, let me download what I found.”

“Download?”

“Transmit the information directly to your brain. You’ve learned to close me off from doing that since you were a kid.”

“I can close you off?”

“If I force information to you, it could overload your brain and cause your body to overheat to the point that your brain melts.”

I slid off the cot and walked toward the two-way glass with my arms tightly crossed over my chest. “Em, you’re talking crazy.”

Em threw her arms up in the air and sighed. “Jade, you need to see this information.”

She was right. I needed and wanted to see what she was talking about. “If I allow you to download information into my brain, it won’t melt it, right?”

She giggled. “No.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Maybe, but we won’t know if we don’t try.”

Maybe it was the tone of her voice that convinced me. Or maybe it was the way she’d been my closest friend for sixteen of the last nineteen years. An annoying friend sometimes, but we were still as close as sisters. Closer, given that she never left my side. And the one time she had, she’d come back talking like this. Even so, I finally nodded my acceptance for her to download information directly to me.

Em put her ghostly hands on my head, and I thought that for an instant, I could feel the pressure. Then information flashed across my consciousness, pure and fast. Emails, letters, confidential files. Notes about: “The urgent necessity of removing the implant for closer evaluation, following a lack of progress.”

Another note stated: “The ethical considerations of the inevitable fatality of the procedure for test Subject H.”

A third note, asking for time, and read: “Test Subject H could be the perfect candidate for the Human Alien Species Hybrid project.” There were details of the project after that, and those made me jerk back in shock.

The tingling against my spine turned to a dull ache and eventually a sharp, jarring pain. But it instantly stopped when I jerked back and blocked the information from further download. Once I caught my breath, I found my way to the chair in my room and sat down.

“What is all this?” I demanded, as Em stepped back, too.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Em shot back. “They’re saying that they want you to make little baby aliens with Aric. Failing that, they’re going to rip me out of you, regardless that it will kill us both.”

“No.” I shook my head, and buried my face into my hands. “No, you’ve got it wrong, Em. You’re malfunctioning. They would never do something like that. Dr. Stevens wouldn’t let them.”

“Wouldn’t
let
them?” Em walked over and kneeled down in front of me. “Jade, whose computer do you think I got all of this information from?”

The hardest part was pretending that everything was normal. Just going about everything as though I hadn’t just been told that the woman I trusted most in the world was having conversations about killing me.

The only things that kept me from collapsing under the weight of that knowledge were the parts of me that were still in disbelief and the mind-boggling speed in which everything around me was changing. But I kept my mouth shut and continued to do what they said, with less enthusiasm and more skepticism.

Today was the fifth day that I was going to spend time with Aric. The last three times were away from the outside-assimilated room. The second time we’d met, we were walked into the recreation room and we did our fitness regimen together. He was strong, beyond anything I had ever seen before and he was focused on his sets and reps. Two times, he looked over at me and caught me staring at him. I wanted to shrink away in embarrassment, especially when he smirked.

The third time we were together, we were in the same room, hooked up to machines. We were asked to hold hands repeatedly while the scientists and doctors assessed the changes in our body chemicals, our emotional balance and the metal on my back and his arms. It was a grueling five hours of testing and by the time we were separated, I was happy to get back to my room and take a nap.

The fourth time I’d seen Aric, we had dinner together. Another awkward moment where I had to eat in front of him in a room where two walls were two-way glass and the entire staff sat in there watching. Aric and I didn’t say two words to each other. We ate, glanced up from time to time, caught each other’s attention, and went back to eating. One time, he winked at me and I giggled.

Each time Aric and I were together, Em was outside of the Faraday cage, so we lost her altogether. She was ravaging information by going through every system the institution had. I knew that because the entire time she was gone, my spine tingled. She was very, very busy doing things.

Today, I sat in my room, waiting for my next meeting with Aric. Em sat on the floor, staring at a large map, memorizing names of cities, states and their capitals.

“I think you should take your braid out since you’re going to see Aric again today.” Em stood with her back against the white wall in my room, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Why?”

“Don’t you like him?”

“He’s okay. We’ve hardly talked.”

“Okay? Are you kidding me? I leave you two alone each time you’re together and you’re still at the stage that he’s
okay
?” Em laughed.

“He makes me nervous, Em.”

“Of course he does; it’s because you like him.”

“I like him but,” I hesitated. “He’s not even from this planet.”

Em narrowed her eyes at me. “Yeah, and you fit in real well with all that live metal down your spine.”

I picked up the pillow on my cot and threw it at her. Of course, it hit the wall and landed on the ground.

“It’s time for you to grow up, Jade. Take down your braid.”

“He’s cute, isn’t he?” I pulled my long braid over one of my shoulders and started running my fingers through the crisscross from the bottom up, fluffing out my long hair.

“He’s beyond cute and today, you two get to spend time in the park.”

Em called the outside-assimilated room
the park
because it felt like we were away from everything. Although there were cameras in the facility, it wasn’t that darn two-way glass that was so obvious there.

“How do you know?”

“Come on, Jade. While you’re with that beautiful creature, Aric, I’m learning everything I can about this place. Each time we come back in the room, I’m armed with that much more knowledge. When you get out of this room, outside of the Faraday cage, I can go crazy getting information from every computer.”

“What are you trying to find out?”

“More about the Institute. Everything I can about how this planet works. By the way, from what I remember of our planet, your atmosphere is a replica of ours, which is why Aric doesn’t have any problems breathing.”

“After sixteen years, I’m sure the scientists here have figured that out.”

Em reached down and tried to scoop up the pillow to throw at me. Her hands went right through it. “You’re lucky I can’t pick up things.”

I laughed, but instantly stopped when I heard the doorknob move. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

Em rolled her eyes. “Stop being so shy and talk to the guy.”

Dr. Stevens walked me down the same corridors that they took me down the first time I met Aric. My stomach was tied in knots. “I haven’t seen Professor Ahern this week.”

“She’s been around.” Dr. Stevens reached out and placed her hand on my shoulder blade. “I thought it might be best to keep her on the sidelines a bit.”

I flinched at Dr. Stevens’ touch and she immediately moved her hand. “I don’t like Professor Ahern.”

“I understand that.”

“I don’t like how she calls me Project H instead of my name. What does that mean anyway?”

Dr. Stevens glanced over at me. “The H stands for Human.”

“So, when she calls Aric Project A, she’s referring to him as an Alien?”

“Yes, Jade. Those were the names you were given when you were brought here, but I thought you two should have actual names as well.”

“It humanizes us.” I said it, but I wasn’t sure where that information had come from.

Dr. Stevens stopped and looked at me. “Where did you learn that?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure. It just came out.” The only thing I could figure was that Em had downloaded information last week that was more than the fact that Dr. Stevens wanted to kill me.

We stopped at the doorway and Dr. Stevens opened it, closing it behind me. I walked in and saw Aric walking in from the other side. We both smiled at each other.

“Hey, Jade.” He lifted his hand and gave one open wave.

“Here we are again, Aric.” I smiled.

Aric walked over to me and reached out his hand. I lay my hand in his and smiled up at him.

“You want to sit under a tree over there?”

I nodded.

He took off his jacket and laid it down in the grass for me to sit on. “Have you been working on your triceps, like I showed you?”

“Yes. Feel that?” I extended my arm and he pressed down on my triceps muscle.

“Wow, you’ve made huge progress in three days,” he smirked.

I couldn’t help but push his arm and laugh when he almost fell backward. I grabbed my hair and draped it over one shoulder as I stared at him through my eyelashes. “Why do you think they’re so interested in bringing us together after all these years?”

“We’re of breeding age.”

“Breeding?”

“You do know about procreating, right?”

I felt the burn of embarrassment wash over my cheeks. “My tutor taught me about that stuff, yes.” My eyes opened wide. “Do you think
that’s
what they want us to do?”

“Em told me—”

“When did you talk with Em?”

“She and I can talk through the security system lines. She didn’t actually come and visit me.”

Oddly, I felt relieved that he wasn’t spending time with Em alone. It was an odd feeling, one that I definitely had never experienced. Was it jealousy? “What did Em say?”

“She read some files about the program being shut down. They lost funding and they were told to terminate the subjects that were part of the HAP.”

“Terminate?” I said, alarmed.

He nodded and pressed his lips together tightly.

“What’s HAP?”

“It means Human Alien Project. Guess they figured after sixteen years, with no progress, it was time to scrap the entire thing.”

Scrap us.

“What stopped them?” I asked.

“Startech.”

“Professor Ahern?” I asked.

Aric nodded. “Startech sank billions of dollars into the project, but they changed their direction. Apparently, according to Em, they no longer care about you or me. Startech wants a hybrid. They want you to have my baby, Jade.”

“Then what?”

“Then they dissect us, see what makes the metal attach and live and then they have their new program that will continue to receive funding under the project name HASH.”

“And that means?”

“Human Alien Species Hybrid.”

“Our baby?”

“Yep.”

“And Em told you all of this?”

“In bits and pieces. She downloads information to me from time to time.”

Now I was certain that I was jealous. I was extremely jealous and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. “Why doesn’t she download the information to me?”

“She’s not sure what you can handle. You’re human and Em is a powerful organism who has grown to care for you.”

I looked away, hoping that the jealousy didn’t show on my face. Apparently, it did, because Aric reached out and took my hand. “She’s not real, Jade. You and I are real and she’s not.”

“She’s real to me.”

“I know…you’ve made her real. You needed her to survive this place all these years, but she’s metal, she’s powerful and logical but she can’t actually feel. Not like we can. We are alive.”

I glanced from his eyes to our fingers intertwined. His hands were so much larger than mine were, and his touch was soft and caressing.

“They can’t see us right now,” he said.

What did he mean? When my eyes snapped back to stare at him, he saw the questioning look.

“We’re connected. The doctors and scientists can see us sitting here together with our hands intertwined but whatever we do from this point, they won’t see. They’ll only see us in this moment.”

“How?”

“The metal has more powers than you’ve experienced. More than you’ve allowed yourself to experience.”

“Will you teach me how to use the metal?”

“You don’t use it, you embrace it. You allow it to thrive inside of you.”

“What if it takes me over? After all, I’m not from Celenia like you are.”

Aric kept his fingers laced in mine as his mind raced for a way to train me to use the metal without hurting myself. “I want to try something, but I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“Okay.”

“Do you trust me?” Aric asked.

Oddly, I did. “Yes, I do.”

He moved closer to me and pulled me into his arms, keeping his fingers laced between mine. I could feel the pit of my stomach churn, the butterflies restless, and my mind twirling. I had never been this close to a man, to anyone before, and the feeling was euphoric.

Aric slowly leaned in, his warm breath brushed against my lips. I looked deep into the depths of his eyes, spotting the silvery flecks of living metal, even there. Then we did the one thing I could never have imagined doing.

We kissed.

It was a sweet kiss, a surprisingly good kiss, not that I exactly had any points of comparison. His lips were so gentle against mine, but I could feel the hard strength of him pressed against me. Nonetheless, as the moment drew out, and out and…

And we weren’t sitting in the park.

Instead, we were in space with black walls, studded here and there with points of silver-like stars. Silvery lines ran along the walls, and it was only because of them that I could tell there were walls at all. Em was standing in the middle of it all, turning slowly with her arms outstretched in obvious joy. It occurred to me that if she was over there, then she must have been a part of this moment with me.

I felt a movement on my back as if the metal had started to move, flow like a river up and down my spine. It wasn’t the familiar tingle nor was it the pain I had felt when Em would download directly to me. It was calm and beautiful as if we were floating amongst the stars enveloped in the warmth of a thriving universe.

When our lips parted, I was dizzy and couldn’t breathe. It took a few seconds to catch my breath and find my equilibrium again and while I regained both of those, Aric pulled me into him, embracing me with comforting arms.

I was nineteen and no one had ever held me like that. No one had ever comforted me in such a way that my insides wanted to melt and if I could, I would have melted into him.

“Are you okay?” he whispered in my ear. His warm breath sent goose bumps up and down my arms.

“Yeah. What happened?”

“I kissed you.”

I laughed. “I know that! But I saw things and felt things. I was floating.”

“You were taken away from the barrier that your body has naturally built around the metal. I let you feel some of its strength; I took you out of here and away from this world.”

“Literally?”

He chuckled. “Not literally. Humans have a tendency to think in a box. The mind is powerful and the metal makes us even more powerful.”

“Em was there.”

“Of course she was. She’s your metal.”