Flickr Fiction Friday: Good Girl

Saudé backs into the corridor, the pressure seal ‘shusshing’ quietly behind her. Martrith had warned her they would come, asking, and she shudders at the implication behind the simple question she’s been asked.

When the Egelloc-Sgod stumbled across their galaxy, Earth had believed itself in a position of dominance against the plump, placid creatures. There had been illuminating discussions on technology and medicine, covert discussions of weaponry and cultural aggressions. So much of their world was known that it was thought that they were, in fact, natural allies; that they were in fact meant to be best friends. The Egelloc-Hsorf were humanoid in appearance, with warm, intelligent eyes, slightly lugubrious expressions, bellies which were sleek and bodies which ran to fat. Their blunt clawed hands were clumsy and eager, and only their elongated necks and double rings of sharp teeth destroyed the illusion of cute helplessness. As they aged, their skin produced more hair, then took on a mottled appearance, tingeing a slight brown with cream and black as their years progressed.

Earth was caught off guard when the first of the Egelloc visitors, so droll and witty, changed. How was she to know that this alien race was only in the first of their developmental stages? Egelloc-Hpos were carrion-eaters. Egelloc-Roinuj were flesh eaters. Egelloc-Sroines played deadly games and consumed their prey on the run.

Many had died before a solution had been found.

“You will let us… take your genetics, you know?” Noel, urbane in his ribbed cowl neck and reeking cigarillo had inclined his head, irises expanding and contracting in that nauseating ripple pattern which indicated inquiry. Saudé had known what he meant, even as she had arched a pierced brow in his direction.

“Genetics?”

“You are simply… so lovely. Such a lovely specimen, really well… marked.” The hair on Saudé’s nape lifted as Noel took her drink, then lifted her arm and peered at the capillaries snaking along its length.

“So well marked…” Noel had leaned over her arm, drawn his tongue down the lines, and she’d shuddered, masking revulsion with desire. His laughter coming in soft pants, Noel had looked up, and his irises had flickered once, twice. Saudé had swayed, feigning dizziness while breaking eye contact. The Egelloc-pack could hypnotize with their eyes, but Saudé was not novice enough to hold their gaze overlong. She counted to fifteen in Uzbekistani, refocused. If she did not respond with at least dizziness, Noel, and the few others of the pack hovering on the edge of the conversation would press in, exposing their throats where their poison apertures were secreted. It would take but the lightest puff, and she would be mind-wiped, forgetting who they were, why she stood there, what’d she’d set out to do that day. They were notoriously paranoid for a species which appeared to be so servile.

Saudé brushed a trembling hand over her face. “Genetics. A specimen. Yes.”

“Good girl.” Noel had bowed a little, given her the canine-tipped smile she hated. “Such a good girl. Such a good girl deserves a treat.”

And now, Saudé had slipped away from the party, was making her way to the stall where she Martrith had secreted the vial. Her hands shook, as she un-taped it from the back of the commode. Chocolate, 100% pure Dagoba Theobroma cacao, and she would ingest it…intravenously.

The Pack would not kill her, not today. Her genetic sample would be safely housed in a lab, where, cell-by-cell, it would grow, the rapid-fire mitosis taking place which would create the clones which would be bred and cloned again to sustain the pack. In their kennelships and in their homes, clones of Saudé would wait on them, they would lick her hands, nuzzle her throat, and whimper as she stroked them. She would scratch the bellies of the young ones, luxuriate in their fine hair with sharp-bristled brushes. And then, when they had finished toying with her, they would bite.

And then the methylxanthenes would flood their systems. And then, it was hoped, they will die.

Martrith was NSA, had told Saudé that she would likely be contacted, that she would likely be held up for blame, might die. This action might jeopardize the future of Earth, but it had to be done, now, and ever after, Earth would be more careful in its first contact situations with alien nations.

After tonight, Saudé will go into protective custody, change her name, undergo painful dermabrasion to remove every freckle, sclerotherapy to disguise the veins in her arms which had so attracted the Egelloc-pack to begin with.

Saudé holds out her arms, looks at them in the flickering fluorescent light of the impersonal bathroom stall Slowly, she pulls the thin rubber sash from her pocket, tightens it around her upper arm, frowning slightly at the brief discomfort as the hairs tug. She taps her arm with cold numb fingers, wishing for a junkie’s self-possession, or a diabetic’s steady hands. Martrith has left her only four needles; she needs to do this right. She abrades her arm with the alcohol prep pack, fingers her arm to be sure, then lets the thin hollow of steel bite her arm.

*** *** ***

“Saudé. What an interesting name. Sow-dee. Or is it Show-day?”

“Sow-uday.” She smiles pleasantly. “Doesn’t really matter how you say it, though. I know who you’re talking to.”

Noel, standing in the doorway, grins, his laughter coming in silent pants. “Didn’t I say she was a treat? Isn’t she a little beauty?”

“Oh, she is, she is. Well, hop up on the table, won’t you, Saudé, that’s a good girl. And you’re sure you don’t want anything? A little sweet perhaps, or some protein? I know your Red Cross used to give sugar ampoules when humans donated their lifeblood, way back before the synthetics. This isn’t at all the same, but I want to give you something… a treat. Come on, you want a treat, don’t you? Don’t you girl?”

Saudé looks up with a lazy smile. “Treat? I’d like a treat. I’m a good girl. I’m a good girl.”

Spending time with people who mistake their children for pets, and require tricks out of them brought this story to mind. As for the rest – well, I’m always up for a discussion of chocolate and psychosis…just don’t forget that chocolate and artificial sweeteners, will kill a dog, all fictions aside… In other news, the photograph(entitled Blue Nile) is part of hanna.bi’s set, and will likely be riffed off of by the usual Flickr suspects: The Gurrier, Ms. Teaandcakes, Elimare, Chris, Aquafortis, Valshamerlyn, and Miss Mari.