The Alien's Patient Read online

  Had the assholes gotten her? Maybe. This felt like a government facility. It was clean. Sterile clean. The walls were made of steel plates, or something that looked like steel plates. She ran her hands over them to make sure that they were actually there, unlike the bar earlier. Unfortunately, they were.

  “Hello!” she called out. “Is anybody there?”

  It occurred to her that yelling out was possibly not the best idea if somebody was there. Most of the somebodies she knew at the moment were the wrong sort of somebody. The very dangerous sort of somebody. Then again, it probably didn’t make any difference. She was trapped, and they knew she was there. Sooner or later, they would come for her. All she could do was sit and wait, and hope that whatever was happening didn’t spell the end for her. Faith had been in a few lockups before, but nothing like this. This was on another level.

  She laid back down on the bed and tried to figure out where she’d gone wrong, exactly. Had she ever gone right? That was a better question. Life, as far as Faith could tell, was a series of problems, every one worse than the one before it. This one might be the worst. Now she was in some kind of facility with shifting walls and illusory bits of furniture. It could be some kind of psy-ops thing. Some kind of secret technology being tested to break people.

  Her cries must have been heard. A second or two after she stopped yelling, the wall opened and the man from earlier was standing there. Something about his presence was quite calming and yet, simultaneously, very concerning. As far as Faith could tell, he didn’t seem to be intent on doing her any harm. He was probably from the government. She was probably going to be recruited by a special service or something. It had only been a matter of time before she caught the eye of law enforcement with everything she had been getting up to. He was definitely wearing something very tactical and super secret looking, black clothing that moved with the rippling muscles of his body in a hard plated concert.

  “Who are you? Where am I?” She backed up against the far wall, firing questions like bullets. The man stepped into the room and the wall slid shut behind him. She was now trapped with him in the small chamber with just the bed for protection. She tried to keep the bed between her and the man, just to be careful, but he didn’t seem interested in approaching her right away. He stood more or less a foot from the door, watching her with silvery gray eyes. They were exceptionally striking, so out of the ordinary she almost wondered if he was wearing some kind of special contact lens.

  “My name is Serkan,” he said. “I am what you would call an alien. I’m part of an organization which monitors developing planets.”

  “Oh,” she said blankly, overloaded by his blunt statement. What did you say when someone said he was an alien? “Okay.”

  There was a period of extended silence as her mind tried to come to terms with the message it had just received. He said nothing, just stood there looking strong and hyper-technological.

  “Are you sure you’re not from Earth?”

  “Very.”

  “Oh. It’s just, er, I had an uncle once and he thought he was an alien for a while, but it turned out that he’d been drinking this tea made of cactus and…”

  “I haven’t been drinking tea,” he said flatly, taking that avenue to sanity off the table.

  “You’re an alien,” she finally repeated.

  “I am.”

  “Well,” Faith mused, taking a deep breath. “Okay then.”

  “You don’t believe me,” he said, showing an impressive grasp of tone, inflection, and body language—not to mention English, for an alleged alien. “That is quite alright. Actually, it is preferable. I would rather you never have known what you were interacting with. Unfortunately, I have been unable to keep you entirely innocent.”

  “I’ve never been entirely innocent,” Faith said, flashing a grin. “So, Mr. Alien. Are you going to let me out of here?”

  “I can tell you still do not believe me,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  He had such a serious expression, and such a handsome face. Faith found herself almost forgetting that she was his prisoner, or at least, not minding it as much as she ordinarily would have.

  “Does it matter if I believe you?”

  “It will make your life easier if you do.”

  “My life has never been easy either,” she said. “Listen. I know there’s no such thing as aliens.”

  “Oh, you do?” It was his turn to smirk, though he did a manful job of trying to hide it, the corner of his lip twisting just a fraction.

  “Yes. I know there’s no such thing as aliens, because they only ever appear to people who are drunk in the desert. And like I said, there’s lots of explanations for what happens to people drunk in deserts besides aliens. I also know that our government spends millions of dollars on all sorts of hyper-technologies every year. So is it more likely you’re a field agent messing with me? Or that you’re an alien intelligence?”

  “I am a field agent,” he admitted. “Just not from Earth. And right now, you’re no longer on Earth. You’re aboard my ship, about half a lightyear from Earth.”

  “Uh huh.” Faith was starting to get worried. Not because she believed he was an alien. Of course he wasn’t. He was very committed to pretending he was an alien though, and that meant she was in the custody of a crazy man. Perhaps she could enter his delusion to gain her freedom. “Well, maybe you could return me to Earth?”

  “I’m afraid that is no longer an option. My ship was almost detected in orbit and my return to base has already been initiated. Return to Earth is impossible.”

  “Uh huh.” Faith nodded slowly. “Impossible. Okay.”

  They stood there, looking at one another with no small measure of mutual concern. He didn’t seem pleased to have her on his hyperspace vehicle, imaginary or otherwise. He wasn’t hostile though; Faith was sensitive to that more than anything. He was keeping his distance from her quite respectfully, trying not to scare her, she guessed.

  A horrible feeling in her stomach was making her start to think that he could be telling the truth. He was just too serious to be unhinged. He wasn’t ranting or raving, he wasn’t trying to freak her out. He wasn’t babbling about angels or talking to the air above his head the way crazy people seemed to do. He was telling her everything with a serious sort of tone that didn’t really leave much room for drama.

  “Well, I don’t really care if you’re an alien or not,” she said. “You helped me when I needed it. So whether you’re a spook or a Spock, it’s the same to me. I owe you my life.”

  “Yes,” he said without much in the way of emotion. “That was my analysis of the situation.”

  “Well, uh, thanks,” she said. “That was nice of you.”

  “Nice?” He considered that. “I suppose it was. It may also have been foolish.”

  “Why?”

  “According to the rules under which I operate, I should never have taken you on board in the first place. Interfering with the course of nature is the number one sin.”

  “I’m glad you did,” she said. “Because I would have… they would have…” She bit her lower lip and tried to blink back the tears that suddenly threatened to overcome her as she let her mind graze over the surface of what could have happened if the gangsters looking for her had actually found her. “It would have been bad.”

  “Yes,” he agreed solemnly. “I thought as much.”

  Everything he had said about being an alien had left her suspicious, even what she had seen with the shifting walls had been less than entirely compelling, but there was something in the slightly sad, puzzled way he agreed with her desperate situation that made her believe him a fraction more.

  “So you’re really an alien? And I’m really nowhere near Earth anymore.” She moved to sit down on the bed because she wasn’t sure her legs could support her through such serious revelations. As she did, the source of all her trouble slipped from the inside of her pocket where it had been wedged and fell to the floor.
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  * * *

  Serkan watched with a slight frown as Faith scrambled for the slim, shiny little object. She grabbed at it so quickly that he barely had time to look at it. Ironically, he wouldn’t have been interested if she hadn’t been so keen to hide whatever it was from him. She gave him an unmistakably guilty look as she shoved the item back inside the cover of her clothes.

  “What was that?”

  “Just a… uhm… you know…”

  He frowned at her. He could tell by the way her eyes darted and the way her lips formed words they did not speak that she was trying to lie to him. He did not like that at all.

  “The truth, please.”

  She looked thoroughly taken aback at his request. It was likely nobody had spoken to her so bluntly before. That was no surprise. As a general rule, humans did seem to prefer indirect verbal communication when they were hoping to avoid conflict.

  He put out his hand. “Show me.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “It is not a request,” he explained. “It is an order. I will see what it is. Now.”

  “You’re weird,” she complained. “It’s not nice to be bossy and tell people what to do.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Give it to me. Now.”

  Her face performed a series of emotive contortions, none of which affected him greatly. Human emotions were not of concern to him, though he never liked to see any sentient being suffer. She was not suffering now, however, she was simply attempting to manipulate him by emulating a younger or perhaps simply weaker version of herself. It might have worked with a human man, wired to protect juvenile, vulnerable versions of his species. It had no effect on Serkan whatsoever.

  “Give me the item, or I will take it from you by force.”

  “Fine,” she sighed. “Here.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out the object. She handed it to him with another of her pouts.

  He turned it over in his hands. It was quite obviously a very simple kind of chip, though it was probably at the forefront of human development. They had been working on this technology almost exclusively for decades, and they were inordinately proud of it. He found it quite charming.

  Serkan looked from the chip to the girl and back again. She was looking decidedly guilty. The blush of embarrassment was flared along the tops of her cheekbones, her gaze was averted, and her legs were swinging, her feet tapping with obvious nerves.

  “This isn’t yours, is it?”

  “Well, it’s in my possession,” she said. “And I guess, possession being nine-tenths of the law… plus we’re in space now, so space law probably applies. So, yes?”

  She lied almost acrobatically. Serkan thought back to the moment he had first seen her lying so still and so cold among the leaves. She had seemed so utterly innocent then. Everything about her had cried out to him for help. Perhaps he was not as immune to the allure of a damsel in distress as he’d thought he was. Now, though, he was beginning to realize that this human was not the sweet innocent he had taken her for. She was a rogue-ish little scamp with trouble written all over her.

  “So, no,” he replied sternly. “This was not yours. And this is why you were being chased, isn’t it.”

  He watched her go pale with fear. She was afraid of him knowing the truth about her. That was interesting. She was worried about his judgment. She thought he might punish her as the aggressive males had sought to do. She was not entirely wrong.

  “Listen, you don’t understand,” she said. “I was paid to take that. It’s not just a chip. It has an AI on it. Do you know what that is? Artificial Intelligence. They made this chip to replace all the food workers in all the cities in the country. This one little chip could do the jobs of tens of thousands of people. It’s worth millions, or maybe billions to the right people. So I got a job in the factory, as a secretary. I worked there a few months, got a promotion or two, got in with the scientists who thought I was cute…”

  “…and you stole it.”

  “Not just that. I took every file associated with it. They stored it all on a single computer. No backups. No connection to the internet. They were paranoid about theft,” she smirked. “But not about skirt. Men are funny like that. The lead scientist took me right to it. Showed me everything I needed. He thought I would sleep with him if he impressed me enough.”

  “So you lied to a man, as well as toyed with his affections to get what you wanted?”

  Her smile faded. “Don’t judge me,” she scowled. “I didn’t enjoy that part of it. I did what I had to do.”

  “You had to steal this?”

  “That is an intelligence that never sleeps, never needs a break, never gets a cold or needs to take a day off to take its aunt to the doctor. A single intelligence which can link thousands of places together, read the data of everyone who comes through the doors? This chip was the first step toward turning people into slaves. Well, maybe not the first step. People have been taking others as slaves forever, but it was the first step to turning a whole society into a…”

  “It wasn’t yours, you stole it, and the people who owned it tried to kill you,” Serkan interrupted grimly.

  “Well, no,” she said. “The people I stole it from still don’t know where it is. The people I tried to sell it to tried to kill me. Turns out gangsters aren’t very nice. They promised me a huge payout. Millions. But then they realized that it was going to be easier to just kill me and take it. So they tried that at our first meeting. I got away then, figured I’d go to the forest, lose them…” She shook her head. “But they really wanted this chip. Makes me think it has more use than just fast food automation.”

  She smirked at him, her face alight with mischief and pride in what she’d done. She thought she was smart. She probably was, for a human, at least. Too smart for her own good.

  Serkan felt his heart sink into his stomach as he turned the chip over in his hand. If this was what he very much suspected it was, then this little brat of a human had derailed the course of global scientific advancement for money. It was a brazen act that would no doubt ripple through human history. He still did not regret saving her life, but he very much regretted that he’d altered the course of humanity.

  Of course they would eventually make another chip, but Serkan understood that little events like these, that often seemed small and of no significance at all, could radically alter the future. By taking Faith, an entire swath of future humans was affected. Some would never be born. Others would come to exist that would have never had a chance under the previous set of conditions. He had figured Faith was a small node on the web, a peripheral little dot that could be removed without serious issue, but he was no longer so sure.

  He knew what he should do, according to his code. He should take her back. He should sedate her, send her back to the planet, and leave her to her fate. That was what his training told him to do. But he knew as she grinned at him, he could never do that. He was already attached. And now they were both in trouble.

  The first order of business was to deal with the little human. Her behavior could not go unpunished a minute longer. He had saved her from the most brutal consequences of her actions, but she would not get away with them entirely.

  * * *

  Faith’s world spun as the great man-shaped creature sat next to her on the bed and pulled her across his lap.

  “What are you doing?” She did her best to squirm around off his lap, but she barely managed to turn around enough to look at him. She just managed to catch a glimpse of his serious, silvery gaze.

  “I am going to spank you for stealing,” he said simply. “According to my information, that is how young female humans are most efficiently punished, by striking the buttocks.”

  “I’m not that young!”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four!”

  “At twenty-four, your frontal cortex is not yet fully developed. You are more than young enough for this punishment,” he said. “Besides, even if y
ou were several decades older, this would still be the most appropriate punishment for thieving. That is a juvenile act, suggesting a lack of comprehension of the ownership of property.”

  “B-but what do you care? It wasn’t yours!”

  “Your stealing nearly got you killed, which made me pick you up, which will have further consequences,” Serkan said. “Everything has an effect on everything else. You must be disciplined for what you did, or that effect will ripple further. You will think that stealing leads to being saved from consequences. Now you are aboard my ship, you will have the opportunity to take things of much more significance. I will break you of this habit, my little human, because I must.”

  His hand met her bottom in a hard slap that made her jolt against his thighs. That single slap seared through her denim jeans and made both cheeks ache with the force of it. He was strong, maybe too strong. If he swatted her much harder, she was going to be in real trouble.

  “Hey! Cut it out!” Faith let out a plaintive cry.

  Serkan ignored her complaints and went on to spank her hard, his palm bouncing off the seat of her pants over and over as if she were some little brat to be disciplined for taking a cookie from the cookie jar.

  It was embarrassing, it was painful, and Faith didn’t like it one little bit. Worse still, he didn’t seem satisfied by slapping her bottom just a few times, he was belaboring her with swat after swat, on and on, making her increasingly uncomfortable by the second.

  “That hurts!”

  “I believe it is supposed to,” the alien said. “A simple punishment for a simple creature.”

  “Fuck you, let me go!” Faith began to fight properly, but she discovered that the creature was impossibly strong. It wasn’t just that he was larger. Every part of him seemed to contain more power. Even the relatively light grip he had on her was more than enough to keep her under control.