Chapter 1: Energy Drinks and Extraterrestrials
The pixelated dragon roared, spewing virtual fire across the screen that made the speakers rattle.Becca’s fingers flew over the controller, a symphony of frantic clicks. Her focus was absolute, a laser beam cutting through the haze of a third Monster Energy drink and the lingering ghost of pepperoni.
“Almost… got you… you scaly bastard,” she muttered, tongue peeking out from between her teeth.Her apartment was a shrine to focused chaos. Towers of pizza boxes formed a precarious skyline next to the TV. A fortress of game cases and tangled cables surrounded the couch where she sat cross-legged, engulfed in an oversized hoodie the color of expired mustard. The only light came from the frantic screen and a single, buzzing desk lamp, fighting a losing battle against the gloom.The air tasted like static, synthetic citrus, and desperation.The dragon faltered. Its health bar, a sliver of glowing red, blinked. Becca leaned forward, her own heart thumping a victory beat.Then, a new sound cut through the digital doom.Knock. Knock.Knock.Not the frantic, friendly rat-a-tat-tat of her delivery guy. This was measured.Authoritative.Wood against wood in triple time.Becca flinched. Her thumb slipped.On screen, her elven avatar screamed, dissolved into a shower of light. YOU HAVE DIED flashed in cruel, pixellated mockery.
“Are you kidding me?” she yelled at the empty room. She tossed the controller onto a cushion where it sank into a nest of crumbs.“I was this close! Do you have any idea how long it takes to get to the Auric citadel?!”
The knocking came again, harder this time.
“I’m not ordering anything, go away!” she bellowed, hauling herself off the couch.She padded to the door, peering through the fisheye lens.
Two shapes filled the view.Black suits, crisp against the peeling paint of the hallway. Sunglasses, despite it being ten PM in a badly lit corridor. They looked like they’d been cloned from a particularly boring branch of the government.Her stomach did a lazy flip. This wasn’t a DMCA notice.This was something worse.
“Becca Holloway?” a voice said, smooth and low enough to penetrate the door.“Please open up. We need to speak with you regarding a matter of national importance.”
National importance.Right. And her expired domain hosting was a matter of interstellar diplomacy.“I’m busy,” she called back. “And whatever it is, I didn’t do it.Try the guy downstairs, he’s way shadier.”
“Ms. Holloway,” the voice repeated, a hint of steel entering the tone. “It is in your best interest to cooperate.”
A heavier silence followed. Then, the sound of a key turning in the lock.Her lock. The deadbolt clicked back with a finality that made her blood run cold.The door swung inward.
The two suits filled the doorway, but they parted to allow a third man through.He was taller, gaunt, wearing a lab coat over a wrinkled shirt and tie. His hair was a premature salt-and-pepper, swept back from a high forehead. He held a tablet, its glow casting his tired, deeply lined face in a sickly blue light. His eyes, a pale and calculating grey, swept over her, then the apartment, taking in the monster cans and the laundry avalanches with a detached, clinical curiosity.He didn’t flinch.
“Becca Holloway,” he said, not as a question.His voice was dry, precise.“I am Dr. Julian Vance.My colleagues are Agents Miller and Coles. May we come in?”
“You already are in,” Becca snapped, crossing her arms over her chest, acutely aware of her cat-hair-covered pajama pants.“And you picked my lock.That’s breaking and entering. I’m calling the cops.” She made no move to find her phone.Dr. Vance took a small step forward, forcing her to back up into the room. The two suits followed, closing the door silently behind them. They positioned themselves on either side of it, hands clasped, becoming part of the furniture.“That won’t be necessary,” Vance said, tapping on his tablet. “And under Article Seven-Alpha of the Unified Sovereignty Act, our entry is not only legal but compelled. Your cooperation is, likewise, compelled.”
“My cooperation with what?” Becca’s mind raced through her recent activities.Freelance logo for a questionable podcast. Some snarky tweets about a politician.Nothing that warranted a home invasion by bureaucrats.
Vance looked up from his screen, his gaze locking onto hers.There was no malice there, no pity. Just the flat, exhausted focus of a man reviewing a spreadsheet. “You have been selected for a federal civic initiative.A unique population sustainability program.”
Becca stared.“A what? Like… a jury duty for weirdos?”
“Not quite.” He swiped on his tablet and turned it towards her. It showed a series of dense genetic sequences, highlighted markers, and a photo of her from her driver’s license next to a complex statistical model.“Your genetic profile presents several favorable anomalies. A robust immune response, a particular hormonal resilience, and a psionic-dampening gene sequence we previously thought was mythological. You are, in statistical terms, an optimal candidate.”
A cold knot tightened in her gut.“Candidate for what?”
Dr.Vance lowered the tablet, his expression never changing. “Project Xenogenesis. Humanity’s agreement to provide a… reproductive reservoir… for a displaced non-terrestrial species facing extinction.You have been conscripted into the breeding program. Your civic duty begins now.”
The words hung in the stale air. They were so absurd, so utterly detached from the reality of her pizza-box fortress and her dead elven warrior, that Becca almost laughed. Then she saw his eyes.He wasn’t joking.
“You’re out of your mind,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady.“I’m not breeding with an alien. Get out.”
“It is not a request, Ms. Holloway.” He gestured slightly, and one of the suits, Miller, took a single, subtle step forward.“The species is benign.The process is clinical. You will be compensated, of course, and your safety is guaranteed.”
“Guaranteed by who? You?” She backed up until her calves hit the edge of her couch.“The answer is no. A hard, final, freak-you-no.I don’t care what act you’re quoting. This is my body.My choice. Even you gotta know how that one works.”
Vance sighed, a faint whistle of air that sounded like the exhaustion of the universe.“Ms. Holloway, your life, with all due respect, is one of minimal entanglement.No consistent employment. No close familial ties.Your social footprint is negligible.From a project risk-assessment standpoint, you are… ideal. Your participation, or lack thereof, will not disrupt any significant human networks. Conversely, your contribution could help ensure the survival of an entire civilization of sentient beings. The moral calculus is clear.”
The casual evisceration of her entire existence, delivered in that dry, factual tone, stole her breath. Minimal entanglement.Negligible footprint.He made her sound like a piece of space junk.
“So because my life is small, I’m expendable? Is that it?” Anger, hot and bright, cut through the shock.“It is not a matter of expendability. It is a matter of optimal resource allocation.Your genetic resource is rare and required. Your social resource is, frankly, uncomplicated. This makes you not expendable, but efficient.” He glanced at his watch.“We are on a schedule.You have five minutes to pack a bag.Personal items only. Everything you will need will be provided.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Agent Miller took another step.He wasn’t a large man, but his presence seemed to shrink the room.
“Ms.Holloway,” Vance said, his patience visibly thinning. “You can walk out of here with some dignity, or Agent Miller will carry you.The outcome is the same. The experience is markedly less pleasant. Please don’t force us to make it unpleasant.”
Becca looked from Vance’s hollowed face to the impassive suits by the door. The controller on the couch, the frozen YOU HAVE DIED screen, the half-finished can of Monster. This was her world.It was messy and small and hers.They were going to take her from it. Over her protests.For a breeding program.
Her sharp wit, her arsenal of sarcastic retorts, failed her.This wasn’t a boss fight with a predictable pattern. This was real, and it was horrifying.“Five minutes,” Vance repeated, turning back to his tablet.
Tears of rage and helplessness pricked at her eyes.She blinked them back furiously. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. With a last, desperate look at her sanctuary, she turned and stormed into her bedroom, leaving the men standing in the glow of her ruined game.
She slammed the bedroom door, not that it mattered. The flimsy wood wouldn’t stop them. For a second, she just stood there, hands trembling, listening to the hum of her PC and the distant city sounds through the grimy window. The urge to cry, to scream, to throw something, was a physical pressure behind her ribs. But the look in Vance’s eyes—that exhausted, impersonal calculation—stifled it. He’d view any meltdown as just more inconvenient data.
Efficient. The word burned.
She yanked her grandmother’s old duffel bag from the closet. What did you pack for your own indefinite incarceration as a science experiment? She shoved in jeans, a few t-shirts, her least-stained hoodie. Underwear, socks. Her hands moved on autopilot, but her mind raced. Optimal candidate. Reproductive reservoir. The clinical terms made it sound clean, sterile. It wasn’t.
From her nightstand, she grabbed her tablet, its charger, her noise-cancelling headphones. A last bastion of control. She hesitated, then swept her favorite figurine—a chipped, painted miniature of a warrior queen from Realms of Elyria—into the bag’s front pocket. A stupid token. It felt necessary.
When she re-emerged, duffel bag slung over her shoulder, the two suits had moved slightly inward. Vance stood exactly where she’d left him, still scrolling.
“Let’s go,” she said, her voice flat.
The drive was in a black SUV with government plates. Becca sat in the back, Vance beside her, the partition up, separating them from the agents in the front. The city lights streamed by, a blur of normalcy she was being physically peeled away from. She watched a couple arguing on a sidewalk, a group of friends laughing outside a bar. Minimal entanglement.
“So,” she said, not looking at him. “Benefits.”
Vance glanced up from his tablet. “A standard compensation package. Room, board, comprehensive healthcare. A significant monetary stipend deposited into an account for you, accessible upon the successful completion of the program.”
“Successful completion. Meaning what, exactly? A pregnancy? A birth?”
“A live birth is the primary metric for cycle completion, yes.”
Cycle. Like she was a washer. “How much?”
He quoted a figure. It was a life-changing sum. A gut-punch number. Enough to buy a house, to never take a shitty freelance gig again.
The sheer scale of it silenced her for a full city block. It wasn’t an offer; it was a valuation. They’d priced her body, her autonomy, her “negligible footprint.” And they could afford it.
“Tax-free?” she finally asked, the cynical question a lifeline back to herself.
“Of course.”
“And if I… if there are complications? Medical stuff?”
“You will receive the best care on the planet. Possibly beyond it.” He said it plainly. “This isn’t a punishment, Ms. Holloway. It’s a selective service. Your well-being is paramount to the viability of the project.”
“My well-being.” She let out a short, brittle laugh. “You broke into my home and kidnapped me. Forced breeding tends to negatively impact my sense of well-being, Doc.”
He didn’t flinch. “The method of retrieval is regrettable but standardized. The process itself is not… invasive in the way you’re likely imagining. It’s more akin to advanced in-vitro fertilization. You may never even have direct contact with a donor.”
The phrasing snagged her. Donor. Not alien. Not mate. A cold, biological term. It should have been a relief. It just felt stranger.
“Why not just ask for volunteers? With that kind of money, you’d get a line around the block.”
“Volunteers come with motivations. Expectations. Emotional complications. Secrecy is also a non-negotiable pillar of the project. A randomly selected, statistically modeled cohort minimizes variables.”
“I’m a variable you’re minimizing.”
“Correct.”
The car glided onto a highway, heading away from the city’s heart toward the industrial fringe. The conversation lulled. Becca stared out at the darkened warehouses.
“What are they like?” The question escaped quietly, before she could stop it.
Vance was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his tone had shifted, ever so slightly. Less bureaucratic. More… academic. “They are oxygen-breathers. Bipedal, though their skeletal structure is quite different. Their biology is fascinating—a kind of silica-based reinforcement in the dermal layers. They are… inherently peaceful. Their crisis is one of reproductive collapse, not warfare. They are our guests, in a very real sense.”
Guests. The word hung there. You didn’t force your guests to breed.
“And they’re okay with this? With you just… snatching people up?”
“The agreement was negotiated at the highest levels. Their understanding of individual autonomy is different from ours. They see it as a collective necessity. We provide the methodology.” He looked at her, his grey eyes catching the gleam of a passing streetlight. “You will be safe, Becca. However strange this seems, you are not in danger from them.”
The use of her first name was jarring. It felt like a manipulation, but a clumsy one. She didn’t answer.
They turned off the highway, passing through a series of increasingly secure checkpoints. High fences, then walls, all lit by stark white light. No signs. Finally, the car stopped before a massive, featureless concrete structure that seemed to absorb the night. A single steel door opened.
“Welcome to the Atheneum,” Vance said, as the agents opened the car doors.
The air outside was cooler, sterile-smelling. Becca shouldered her duffel bag, the weight of the figurine in the pocket a faint, absurd comfort. She looked at the imposing facade, then at Vance, his face etched in the harsh security lights.
“The benefits better include unlimited internet,” she said, and walked toward the door before he could answer.
The corridor beyond the steel door was a vein of white light and polished concrete, stretching in both directions to vanishing points. The air was filtered, faintly antiseptic, with a low hum from recessed fixtures that never flickered. Vance walked ahead, his lab coat whispering against his trousers, the two agents trailing at a discreet distance like obedient dogs.
"Your living quarters are on Level Four," he said without turning. "Medical and laboratory facilities occupy Levels One through Three. Level Five is the donor wing. You will not have access there without an escort, and you will not require one."
Becca clutched her duffel bag like a shield. The fluorescent light made her skin look washed out, her freckles too dark. She tried to take in details, to map the place, but it was all the same: identical doors, identical numbers, the occasional glimpse through a window of a room full of humming equipment and white-coated figures who didn't look up.
She counted the doors. It kept her breathing even.
Vance stopped at a keypad beside a plain door marked 4-12. He pressed a sequence in a rapid, practiced rhythm. There was a soft chime, and the door slid open with a hiss that reminded her of the sound a pizza oven makes.
"Your apartment," he said.
Becca stepped over the threshold and stopped.
The apartment was small, but it was clean. A narrow living room with a low gray sofa, a coffee table, and a modest television mounted on the wall. Through an open doorway she could see a bedroom with a queen bed made up in crisp white linens. A kitchenette with a two-burner stove, a mini fridge, a sink. A closed door that presumably led to a bathroom. Everything was lit with the same soft, even white light, but here it felt less clinical. Almost warm.
"This is the common area," Vance said from the hallway, not entering. "The kitchenette is stocked. Meals are also provided in the commissary on Level Two, which you'll find on your orientation card." He tapped the tablet he still held. "You'll receive a schedule for tomorrow morning. Initial screening starts at 08:00. You'll want to dress comfortably; expect a full blood panel and a physical."
Becca turned in a slow circle, taking in the space. It was nicer than her grandmother's apartment. Cleaner. The furniture wasn't held together with duct tape. There was a real mattress, not a futon with a mysterious stain.
"You've got to be kidding me," she said quietly.
Vance paused. "The accommodations are standard for program participants."
"No, I mean... this is nicer than my place." She dropped her duffel bag on the sofa. It landed with a heavy thunk. "Do I get a roommate? A cellmate? A warden?"
"You will be alone." Vance's voice was flat. "There are other participants in the program, but you will not share quarters with them. Privacy is respected; we find it reduces stress variables."
Stress variables. Every other sentence out of his mouth was a spreadsheeted metric.
"What about my stuff?" Becca gestured vaguely, encompassing her duffel and the entire concept of her former life. "My console, my games, my... everything?"
"Personal electronics are permitted. The facility has a secure network with access to civilian entertainment servers. It is filtered for security, but you should find your gaming library largely intact." He looked at her, a faint, almost imperceptible tilt of his head. "We anticipated that comfort items would improve compliance."
She stared at him. "You cleared my gaming library."
"Your digital purchases are linked to your accounts. Remote access was arranged during transit."
Becca opened her mouth, closed it. She had a thousand questions, a thousand more accusations, but the sheer absurdity of it left her without a foothold.
"The bathroom is through there." Vance pointed. "Your closet is stocked with standard-issue clothing, though you're welcome to wear your own. If you need anything else, use the panel by the door. It connects you to facility services."
He took a step back into the hallway. "Testing begins at 08:00. A guide will come for you." He hesitated, as if weighing a final thought. Then he said, "The food here is good. Use the commissary." And with that, he turned and walked away, the white of his coat receding until the corridor swallowed him.
The door slid shut. The lock engaged with a soft click Becca was sure she imagined. She stood in the middle of her new cage, alone.
For a long moment, she didn't move. The silence was absolute, so different from her grandmother's apartment with its rattling pipes, the hum of her gaming rig, the distant sirens of the city. Here, the quiet felt pressed down like a thumb on a bruise.
Then she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"Okay," she said to no one. "Okay."
She hauled her duffel into the bedroom. The closet was half-filled with drab gray and navy clothing, all soft cotton, all her size. She shoved her own clothes into the dresser, leaving her grandmother's bag open on the floor. From the front pocket, she pulled the chipped warrior queen figurine and set it on the bedside table. It looked small and out of place against the blank wall, but it was hers.
She explored the rest of the apartment methodically, like clearing a dungeon for the first time. The bathroom had a proper shower with actual water pressure, a far cry from her apartment's dribbling head. The kitchenette held a startling variety of snacks and drinks, including a case of her favorite brand of energy drink, stacked neatly in the mini fridge. A small gesture, or a calculated one. She couldn't decide which was worse.
The living room had a single window. She pulled back the blind and found only a view of an interior courtyard, grass and a few trees, surrounded by the facility's concrete walls. The outside world was invisible; even the sky was cut off by a glass ceiling she could see through but not touch. The lighting shifted to mimic daylight. A token, she thought. A simulation of freedom.
Back in the living room, she kicked off her shoes and flopped onto the couch. The television was already on a home screen. She found her accounts were indeed connected; her game library populated the screen, a familiar list of titles that loosened a knot in her chest she didn't know she'd been carrying.
She picked up the remote, then put it down. The idea of gaming, of slipping back into that comfortable world, felt wrong. She'd been yanked out of one reality and dropped into another; sinking into a fantasy felt like giving up.
Instead, she sat in the quiet and stared at the wall.
The clock on the wall said 23:47. She'd been here less than an hour.
Her mind drifted to the alien. The squid-like creature Vance had described, peaceful, reproductively collapsing. She pictured it, tried to imagine what it would be like to meet one, and found the image wouldn't form. The whole thing was too abstract, too far outside her frame of reference. Aliens were something you shot in games, or befriended in grand space operas. They weren't something that made government agents pick your lock at ten PM.
She was still sitting there when the lights dimmed automatically, and the simulated daylight outside the window settled into a muted dusk. The facility's rhythms were set, she realized. It was her body that was out of step.
Becca padded back to the bedroom, pulled back the crisp white sheets, and climbed in still wearing her pajama pants and her hoodie. She left the figurine on the nightstand, its chipped paint catching the low light.
She stared at the ceiling for a long, long time. The quiet wasn't comforting, but it was a kind of peace. It was all she had.
And then, eventually, the alarm on the wall unit buzzed. A soft chime. A voice, pleasant and artificial: "Good morning, Ms. Holloway. Your orientation begins in one hour. Breakfast is available in the commissary on Level Two. Have a productive day."
Productive. That word again.
Becca swung her legs off the bed, pressed her palms to her eyes, and sighed into the empty apartment.
"Alright," she muttered. "Let's go find out what you sick bastards actually want."
Becca stared at the ceiling for another long minute before the weight of the day settled onto her shoulders like a wet blanket. She dragged herself upright, pulled her hoodie straight, and padded to the bathroom. The shower was hot and abundant, a small luxury she begrudgingly admitted was nice. She dressed in her own clothes, the familiar worn denim and a faded t-shirt from a gaming convention she'd attended four years ago. Comfort armor, she told herself.
The corridor was empty when she stepped out. The map on the wall unit had shown her the way: a right turn, then a left, then a set of glass doors leading to the commissary. Her footsteps echoed in the sterile silence. She passed doors marked with numbers and symbols she didn't recognize, all closed, all identical.
The commissary was bigger than she expected. Long rows of tables stretched across a bright, airy room with high ceilings and windows that looked out onto the same interior courtyard. The serving line was a buffet of sorts, gleaming trays of eggs, bacon, pancakes, fresh fruit, pastries. The smell hit her like a truck. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until that moment; the last real meal she'd had was a slice of cold pizza sometime before the men in suits had arrived.
"Good morning, Ms. Holloway," said a cheerful woman in a hairnet behind the counter. "Help yourself. Everything's fresh."
Becca grabbed a tray and loaded it with more food than she'd eaten in a week. Eggs, bacon, a stack of pancakes, a bowl of fruit, a glass of orange juice, and a coffee that smelled like actual coffee, not the burnt sludge she was used to. She found an empty table near the corner, away from the handful of other people already eating. They were a mix of ages and builds, a few in the same gray facility clothing, a couple in their own clothes like her. None of them looked up.
She sat down, the tray clattering against the tabletop. For a moment, she just looked at the food. It was the best-looking meal she'd seen in years, and some part of her felt guilty for enjoying it. Like accepting the food was accepting the situation.
Then her stomach growled, loud enough to echo, and she picked up her fork.
"Hey, is this seat taken?"
Becca looked up. A girl stood at the other side of the table, tray in hand. She was tall and rail-thin, with straight blonde hair that fell past her shoulders and pale blue eyes that seemed too large for her narrow face. She wore a cardigan over jeans, her own clothes, and her tray held only a small bowl of yogurt and a glass of water. She looked nervous, her shoulders hunched, her gaze darting around the room.
"Uh, no," Becca said. "Go ahead."
The girl slid into the seat across from her with an audible sigh of relief. "Thanks. It's kind of overwhelming in here, right? Everywhere else is so quiet." She set her tray down and looked at Becca's mountain of food with a small, surprised smile. "You're brave. I can barely stomach anything."
"It smelled too good to resist," Becca said, with a mouthful of eggs. "So far, the only good thing about this place."
"Right?" The girl laughed, a light, girlish sound. "I'm Chloe, by the way. Chloe Harrison. This is my first day too."
Becca swallowed. "Becca Holloway. Also first day. We're in the same club, I guess. The 'kidnapped by the government' club."
Chloe's smile flickered, almost faltering. "Yeah. That's one way to put it." She stirred her yogurt with her spoon, not eating. "They came to my apartment at like eleven at night. I thought it was a prank at first. A really weird, really well-organized prank."
"They picked my lock," Becca said dryly. "Broke in, told me I'd been selected for a breeding program, gave me five minutes to pack. Honestly, I'm still not sure it actually happened. Part of me thinks I'm gonna wake up and my elven avatar is gonna still be alive and this was all a Monster Energy-induced hallucination."
Chloe's brow furrowed. "Breeding program? They didn't tell me that part."
Becca froze, fork halfway to her mouth. "Wait, you don't know why you're here?"
Chloe shook her head, her long hair swaying. "They said something about a 'special initiative' and 'genetic compatibility' and a 'significant compensation package.' They were really vague. I figured it was some kind of clinical trial, maybe." She looked down at her yogurt. "Breeding program. That's..."
"Uh, yeah." Becca put her fork down. "Sorry. I thought everyone got the same speech. The skinny guy, Dr. Vance, he's pretty thorough about the whole thing. The aliens, the extinction, the whole deal."
The color drained from Chloe's face. "Aliens?"
"Okay, so you really didn't get any of the briefing," Becca muttered. She glanced around the commissary; no one seemed to be paying attention to them. She leaned in and lowered her voice. "Look, here's what I know. There's this alien species, they're dying off, and the government made some kind of deal to help them reproduce. We're the, uh, vessels. They want us to carry their eggs or whatever. I don't know the details yet. I've got testing this morning."
Chloe stared at her, a pale mask of shock. "And you just... went along with it?"
"You saw the men in suits, right? The ones who don't blink and don't go away?" Becca shrugged. "I didn't really get a choice. They were very clear about that. Walk out with dignity or get carried out. Same outcome."
"Oh god." Chloe pressed her hands to her face. "Oh god, I thought it was just a fertility thing. Like, a weird IVF study. I didn't think there were actual aliens involved."
"Yeah, well. Welcome to the club." Becca picked her fork back up and took a bite of pancake. It was excellent. Fluffy, buttery. The absurdity of the situation, eating the best pancakes of her life while discussing forced interspecies procreation, almost made her laugh. Almost.
Chloe dropped her hands, her eyes wide and wet. "What are they like? The aliens?"
Becca chewed, thinking. "The doctor said they're peaceful. Squid-like, apparently?
Chloe's face had gone so pale her freckles looked like flecks of paint on a white wall. "Squid-like," she repeated, as if trying to make the words fit in her mouth.
"Squid-like is what Vance said. Bipedal, though. Weird skeleton, something about silica in their skin. Peaceful, supposedly." Becca shrugged and forked another bite of pancake. "I'm not exactly an expert. I just got here, same as you."
"God." Chloe pressed her fingers to her temples. "I'm going to be sick."
"Don't be. The food's good." Becca gestured at the girl's untouched yogurt. "If you're gonna be a vessel for an alien egg or whatever, you might as well do it on a full stomach."
Chloe let out a shaky, humorless laugh. "You're weirdly calm about this."
"Am I? I feel like I'm about to vibrate out of my skin. But I've been playing sci-fi games my whole life. You learn to accept the absurd premise and find the glitch in the system." Becca drained half her orange juice. "Speaking of systems, I've got testing in..." she glanced at the clock on the far wall, "...twenty minutes. Might as well get it over with."
She stood, grabbing her tray. Chloe looked up at her with wide, pleading eyes. "Will you... will you be back? After your testing?"
"Yeah. It's a small place. I'm not hard to find."
Chloe nodded, hugging her cardigan around her thin frame. "Thanks, Becca. I mean it."
Becca gave her a crooked smile, dumped her tray at the collection point, and headed out into the corridor. The map on the wall unit had shown the route to Level One. She followed it, her footsteps echoing in the empty hall, past the identical doors and the occasional white-coated figure who nodded without making eye contact.
The elevator took her down one level. When the doors slid open, the air changed. Colder, crisper, with a tinge of ozone and antiseptic. The corridor here was wider, the walls a clean bone-white, broken up by glass panels that revealed rooms full of diagnostic equipment she couldn't name. It all looked like a set from a television medical drama, the kind she used to watch at three in the morning while her grandmother snored in the next room.
Room 1-04. The number on the door matched the one on the schedule Vance had sent to her wall unit. She knocked.
"Enter," came the dry, familiar voice.
Becca pushed the door open. Dr. Vance stood beside a table in the center of the room. It was padded, covered in a paper sheet, and surrounded by enough blinking machinery to make her stomach drop. A woman she hadn't seen before, mid-forties, with short gray-streaked hair and a no-nonsense face, stood at a counter arranging vials. She wore scrubs the color of a bruise.
"Ms. Holloway," Vance said. "Punctuality is appreciated. Please disrobe and take a seat on the table."
Becca stopped in the doorway. "Disrobe. All of it?"
"All of it. This is a comprehensive physical. Dr. Okafor will be assisting."
The woman turned and gave Becca a small, professional nod. "Hello. This won't hurt. Mostly."
"Mostly." Becca's laugh was a single, brittle note. "You're just making me feel better."
She shrugged off her hoodie, then her t-shirt. Her fingers were steadier than she expected. Jeans, socks, underwear. Each piece folded and placed on a chair in the corner. The air on her skin was cool, clinical. She climbed onto the table, the paper crinkling beneath her, and lay back, staring at the ceiling panels. They were dimpled white plastic. She counted them. Twelve.
Vance and Dr. Okafor moved around her like they'd done this a hundred times. They probably had. There was something almost hypnotic about the rhythm: the cold pressure of a stethoscope on her back, the gentle poke of needles, the soft hum of machines. Blood drawn. Vitals checked. Eyes, ears, mouth, all examined with a small light that made her flinch.
"Your vitals are excellent," Dr. Okafor said, making notes on a tablet. "Blood pressure, resting heart rate, all within ideal parameters. Your genetic profile flagged a strong response to environmental stressors, which is promising."
"Promising for what?" Becca asked, her voice a little tight.
"For the process." That was Vance. He stood at her side, a small ultrasound wand in his hand. "This is the last portion. You'll need to shift to a lithotomy position."
Becca blinked. "I'm sorry, a what?"
"Feet in the stirrups," Dr. Okafor said, drawing them out from the end of the table. "We need to examine your reproductive system directly."
Becca's cheeks flushed hot. She'd had pelvic exams before, but not with a government scientist and a cold-eyed doctor watching, not like this. She positioned herself anyway, legs apart, knees bent, the paper crinkling beneath her thighs. She stared at the ceiling again. Eighteen panels. Nineteen.
Vance applied cool gel to her lower abdomen with nary a flinch, then pressed the wand to her skin. The machine beside her flickered to life, a gray-blue blob of sonogram imagery that meant nothing to her. Vance studied it with a focused intensity, tracing a line with one finger on the screen.
"Uterus is healthy," he murmured. "Follicle count looks strong. No abnormal tissue, no scarring. Hormonal profile suggests a robust luteal phase response." He made a small, satisfied sound. "Excellent."
"That's it?" Becca's voice came out smaller than she intended.
"That's it. The initial physical is complete. You're in exceptional reproductive health, which is well within the expected parameters for this program." Vance withdrew the wand, wiped the gel off her skin with a paper towel, and handed it to Dr. Okafor. "You can get dressed. We're done for today."
Becca bolted upright, a surge of breath catching in her chest. "Done? That's... that's the whole thing?"
"For the initial screening, yes." Vance was already moving toward the door, tablet tucked under his arm. "Your body is not yet in the receptive phase for implantation. We'll need to synchronize your hormonal cycle with the donor's biological rhythm before the procedure can occur. That will take several days, possibly a week. In the meantime, you're free to acclimate. Rest, eat well, use the recreation facilities. We'll call you when it's time."
"When it's time," she repeated, the words flat on her tongue.
"When your body is ready." He paused at the door, his grey eyes finding hers. "You've done well so far, Ms. Holloway. Better than most. Your compliance is noted and appreciated."
He was gone before she could respond.
Becca stared at the closed door, then at Dr. Okafor, who was already cleaning up the vials. The doctor offered her a small, not unkind smile. "He's not great with people, but he means it. You really are doing well."
Becca slid off the table and began pulling on her underwear, her jeans, her t-shirt. Her hands had a slight tremor now that the adrenaline was fading. "Compliance. That's what he said. Like I'm a dog that sits when told."
"Better a compliant dog than a hostile one," Dr. Okafor said. "Trust me. This part is the easy part. You'll be back in your room before you know it. Try to rest. You've got time."
Time. Becca zipped her hoodie and headed for the door, then paused. "Dr. Okafor? What's next? After my body is 'ready'?"
The doctor's expression flickered, just for a moment. Something that might have been pity behind her practical mask. "They'll explain everything when the time comes. It's not something to worry about today. Go, rest. Drink water. You're going to need your strength."
Becca left before she could ask anything else. The corridor was the same white length of light, but it felt different now. More real. More pressing. She rode the elevator back to Level Four, stepped into her apartment, and let the door hiss shut behind her.
She sat on the couch and stared at the blank television screen for a long time. Her stomach was full of pancakes, her veins full of blood she'd just given, and her mind full of questions that had nowhere to go. She picked up the figurine from the nightstand, turned it in her hands, and set it back down.
Then she picked up the remote, turned on the TV, and queued up an old save file of her favorite game. She hadn't died to that dragon for nothing, she told herself, as the familiar title music swelled. She'd get back there. She always did.
The afternoon bled into evening in the muted way it did in the Atheneum, the simulated daylight outside her window shifting through amber tones before settling into a soft dusk. Becca had managed to clear two side quests and make real progress toward the Auric citadel, her fingers finding the familiar rhythm of the controller, the old muscle memory kicking in like a comfortable pair of shoes. She'd even allowed herself a small, vindicated smile when she'd finally unlocked the achievement she'd been chasing for weeks.
But the game couldn't hold her forever. Her stomach growled, a hollow, demanding sound that cut through the boss fight soundtrack. She paused the game, glanced at the clock, and decided dinner was a better use of her time than another attempt at the same boss she'd been stuck on for an hour.
She stepped into the corridor and nearly collided with a figure emerging from the apartment directly across from hers.
"Oh!" Chloe stumbled back, a hand flying to her chest. "Sorry, I wasn't—" She recognized Becca and let out a breathless laugh. "Oh, it's you. Hey."
"Hey." Becca registered the girl's presence, the familiar cardigan, the blonde hair now pulled back in a loose ponytail. The nervous energy from the morning was still there, a hum beneath the surface, but she seemed steadier. "You're across the hall. Fancy that."
"Small world. Or small building, anyway." Chloe fell into step beside her as Becca started down the corridor. "You heading to dinner?"
"Starving. You?"
"Same. I skipped lunch, couldn't face the commissary alone." Chloe's fingers twisted together at her sides. "You were gone for a while. I thought maybe they'd, you know, started the whole thing already."
"Nope, just a physical. Got poked and prodded, told I had good follicles, and sent on my way." Becca made a face. "Apparently my uterus is 'in excellent health.' High praise from the government."
Chloe laughed, a genuine sound that cracked through the sterile air. "They told me the same thing, basically. Well, my initial testing went well too. They said the same thing, basically."
Becca glanced at her. "Did they tell you anything else? Anything specific about what's coming next?"
Chloe shook her head, her ponytail swaying. "Everything was really vague. They checked my blood, did an ultrasound, asked me a bunch of questions about my medical history. Dr. Vance said something about synchronizing my cycle with the donor's, but he didn't explain what that meant. He just said I'd get a call when it was time."
"So we're both in the dark." Becca pushed open the glass doors to the commissary. The room was busier than breakfast, a dozen or so people scattered across the tables, conversation humming in low murmurs. The buffet line gleamed under the lights, steam rising from trays of food that smelled like actual cooking, not institutional slop.
"God, it smells amazing," Chloe said, grabbing a tray.
"Right? The pancakes this morning were legit." Becca picked up a tray of her own and joined the line. She loaded up with reckless abandon, scooping mashed potatoes, roasted chicken, a heap of green beans that she'd never touch at home, a thick slice of garlic bread, and a bowl of soup she didn't recognize but looked promising. She topped it off with a slice of chocolate cake that looked almost too perfect to eat.
Chloe was more restrained, but less so than breakfast. She ladled herself a moderate portion of pasta, added a side salad, and after a moment's hesitation, picked up a brownie and placed it on her tray with a small, determined nod.
"Look at you," Becca said, sliding her tray along the rails. "Expanding your horizons."
"I decided I'm not going to waste away while I'm here. If I'm going to be..." Chloe lowered her voice, glancing around, "a vessel for an alien, I'm not going to do it while malnourished."
"Better a well-fed vessel than a hungry one." Becca grabbed a glass of lemonade and steered them toward a table near the windows, a spot with a view of the courtyard. The grass was still green, the trees still leafy, the artificial sky a soft dusky blue that felt almost nostalgic.
They sat down across from each other. For a moment, there was just the clatter of cutlery and the quiet sounds of the commissary around them. Then Becca took a bite of the chicken and let out an involuntary groan. "Okay, this is actually really good."
Chloe's pasta looked decent, but she was staring at it, her fork hovering. "Do you think they're watching us right now? Like, cameras?"
"Almost certainly." Becca gestured with her fork at the ceiling. "There's probably a guy in a windowless room eating a sad sandwich while he watches us eat. Fascinating stuff. 'Subject A chews with her mouth open. Subject B seems conflicted about her pasta.' Riveting."
Chloe laughed, a real laugh, and it seemed to loosen something in her shoulders. She took a bite of her pasta, chewed, swallowed. "You know, you're kind of the only good thing about this place so far."
"High praise. I'm a gamer with a chipped figurine and a wardrobe of stained hoodies." Becca shrugged. "But I'll take it."
"Seriously, though." Chloe set her fork down, her pale eyes earnest. "I was panicking this morning. I don't think I would've eaten anything if you hadn't been there. The way you just... rolled with it. Made jokes. It helped."
"Jokes are my coping mechanism," Becca said. "That and energy drinks. Speaking of which, they have my brand in my mini fridge. That's either thoughtful or terrifying, I haven't decided which."
"Maybe both." Chloe took another bite, then a sip of water. "What do you think the donor is like? The alien, I mean."
Becca chewed slowly, considering. "The doc said they're peaceful. Squid-like but bipedal. Silica in their skin, whatever that means. I keep trying to picture it, but I just get this blob with legs." She shrugged. "I guess we'll find out."
Chloe shuddered. "I don't know if I want to find out. I keep trying to not think about it. Like, if I don't think about it, it won't happen."
"That's the denial strategy. I know it well." Becca took a long sip of lemonade. "Doesn't work long-term, but it gets you through the day."
"So what's your strategy for getting through the day?"
Becca considered the question, her fork pausing over the mashed potatoes. "I don't know yet. I was pretty good at it this morning, mostly because I was running on adrenaline and outrage. Now that I've had time to settle in, it's harder. The quiet in that apartment is real loud."
Chloe nodded, understanding flickering in her eyes. "Mine too. I sat on the couch for like two hours just staring at the wall. Then I unpacked my stuff, rearranged it, unpacked it again. I think I was trying to make it mine."
"Did it work?"
"A little." Chloe picked up her brownie, studied it, took a bite. "It helps to have a person, though. Makes it feel less like being buried alive."
Becca smiled, a genuine one that softened the sharp edges of her usual sarcasm. "Yeah. I think it does."
They ate in companionable silence for a while, the tray of food steadily emptying. Outside the window, the simulated sky deepened toward night, and the courtyard lights blinked on, casting soft pools of gold across the grass. Becca finished her cake, licked the fork clean, and leaned back in her chair with a satisfied sigh.
"Okay, I'll admit it. The food is the best part of this nightmare."
Chloe laughed, and Becca found she didn't mind the sound. She didn't mind Chloe, either, and that was something. A small, fragile thread of connection in a place that was all concrete and white light and doors that locked from the outside.
"We should do this again," Chloe said, echoing the thought. "Dinner, I mean. If we're going to be stuck here together, we might as well be stuck together."
"Deal." Becca stood, grabbing her tray. "I'll meet you back here at six tomorrow. Bring your appetite."
"I'll try."
They headed for the tray return, walking side by side through the quiet hum of the commissary. Becca caught a glimpse of her reflection in the dark glass of the window, a chubby redhead in a faded t-shirt, and blinked. She looked more real than she felt, more solid, more settled. Maybe the pancakes and the company were doing more than she'd thought.
The corridor swallowed them again, the same white length of light, the same identical doors. They stopped outside their apartments, facing each other.
"See you tomorrow," Chloe said, a small smile on her thin face.
"Yeah. See you." Becca watched her disappear into her room, the door hissing shut, and then stood in the hallway for a long moment. She pressed her palm against her own door, feeling the cool metal, the weight of the facility around her.
Then she pushed it open, stepped inside her apartment, and let the door close behind her. The quiet settled around her again, but it was a little less oppressive now. She'd found something to hold onto, a hand to squeeze in the dark.
She picked up the figurine from the nightstand, turned it in her hands, and set it back down. Then she picked up the controller, unpaused the game, and got back to work.
The days folded into a rhythm Becca hadn't expected. Mornings in the commissary with Chloe, trading nervous jokes over coffee and eggs. Afternoons spent clearing her game's side quests, the achievement list ticking upward with satisfying little pings. Evenings of quiet conversation, of learning Chloe's nervous laughter wasn't a sign of weakness but a skill, a way of smoothing over the cracks in the day.
She'd started to think of the Atheneum as a strange kind of holding tank. Not prison, exactly, but not home either. A liminal space where the walls were too clean and the food was too good and everyone pretended the inevitable wasn't coming.
It came on the sixth day.
The wall unit chimed at 14:00. Becca had just defeated a mini-boss she'd been stuck on for two days, and she was riding the small high of victory, the controller still warm in her hands. The voice was the same pleasant, artificial tone that had greeted her on that first morning.
"Ms. Holloway, your procedure is scheduled for 15:00 today. Please report to Lab 0 on Level One. Dress comfortably. A guide will meet you at the elevator."
Becca stared at the wall unit. The controller slipped from her fingers, landing on the couch cushion with a soft thump. Six days of pretending, of gaming, of stuffing herself with excellent food and laughing with Chloe, all of it evaporated in a single sentence.
She had an hour.
She'd thought she'd have more time. She'd imagined the briefing, the preparation, the slow build toward the moment. But apparently the Atheneum didn't do slow. It did sudden, clinical, and inevitable.
She stood, walked to the bathroom, and stared at her reflection. Same freckles, same curly red hair, same oversized hoodie. But the eyes looking back at her were different. They'd seen the inside of a government facility, met a nervous girl across a hospital tray, heard their own uterus described as "in exceptional health." They'd been changed.
"You knew this was coming," she told her reflection. "You knew it the second he said 'breeding program.'"
The reflection didn't answer.
She stripped off the hoodie and pulled on a clean t-shirt, a pair of leggings that she'd actually worn once to a yoga class she'd immediately quit. Practical. Comfortable. Like the doctors would care what she wore to get impregnated by an alien.
She stood in the doorway of her apartment for a moment, hand on the frame. Then she crossed the hall and knocked on Chloe's door. It opened almost immediately, as if Chloe had been waiting on the other side.
"Becca." Chloe's eyes went wide, her pale face even paler than usual. "They sent you the message too?"
"No. Just me." Becca shook her head. "I'm going in now. I just... I wanted someone to know."
Chloe's hand found hers, squeezed. Her fingers were cold. "It'll be fine. You're strong. You're the person who talks back to government scientists. You'll be fine."
"And if I'm not?"
"Then I'll burn this place to the ground." Chloe's voice was a thin, fierce whisper. "Bring a lighter. I'll bring the matches."
Becca laughed, a real one, and it felt good in her chest. "Deal. I'll see you at dinner."
"Six o'clock. Don't be late." Chloe squeezed her hand once more, then let go and stepped back into her apartment. The door hissed shut.
Becca turned and walked toward the elevator. The guide was waiting, a young man in the same gray facility clothing who gave her a neutral nod and didn't speak as they descended to Level One. The air changed as the doors opened, colder, crisper, that same ozone-tinged breath she'd felt on her first day.
Lab 0 was at the end of a corridor she hadn't explored, past the glass-paneled rooms and the humming machinery, past a final security door that slid open at the guide's wave. Inside, the room was smaller than she'd expected. White walls, white floor, a single exam table in the center with stirrups at the end. Dr. Vance stood beside it, tablet in hand, his grey eyes finding her the moment she stepped through the door.
"Ms. Holloway. Right on time." He gestured to the table. "Please, disrobe and lie down with your feet in the stirrups. Dr. Okafor will be attending via monitor."
Becca stood in the doorway, her heart a steady drum against her ribs. "That's it? No speech? No 'this is for the good of galactic civilization'?"
Vance lowered his tablet. "You've had the speech. You've had the physical. The process itself is straightforward. The less build-up, the less anxiety. Please, disrobe."
She crossed her arms, a last gesture of defiance. "And if I say no?"
"Then we have this conversation at a later date, with a less comfortable outcome." His eyes were flat, patient. "The restraints are for your safety and the donor's. They are not optional."
Restraints. The word snagged in her chest. She hadn't expected restraints.
But she'd known, hadn't she? She'd known the moment she'd packed her bag, the moment she'd walked into the Atheneum, the moment she'd let them draw her blood and scan her insides. There was no going back. There had never been any going back.
She stripped. Hoodie first, then t-shirt, then leggings. Her underwear went last, folding them into a neat pile on the chair where her clothes had rested during the physical. She climbed onto the table, the paper crinkling beneath her, and positioned herself with her feet in the stirrups. The leather was cool against her heels. She stared at the ceiling. Fourteen panels. Fifteen.
Vance moved to the side of the table, and she felt him fasten something around her right wrist. A soft cuff, padded with foam, locking around her arm with a click. Then the left. Then her ankles, the cuffs tightening just enough to hold, not enough to hurt. She was pinned in place, spread open, vulnerable in a way she'd never felt before.
"Comfortable?" Vance asked.
"Peachy." Her voice was a croak.
He nodded to someone she couldn't see, someone by the wall. A moment later, a woman in scrubs wheeled a cart into the room. The cart was covered with a white sheet, and on it sat a large, glass container filled with a dark, viscous fluid that sloshed gently with each movement. It looked like seawater, but darker, almost black, with flecks of something that caught the light.
The cart was stopped at the foot of the table, between her spread legs.
Vance lifted the sheet and set it aside. Inside the container, nestled in the dark fluid, was a creature.
It was small, bulbous, roughly the size of a small melon. Its body was a mottled gray-blue, slick with fluid, and it had several short tentacles that curled and uncurled with a slow, deliberate motion. There were no eyes that she could see, no face, just that smooth, rounded body and those searching limbs. It was beautiful in a way, and it was the most alien thing she'd ever seen.
"This is the donor," Vance said quietly. "It's been briefed on the procedure. It understands what's required."
Becca stared at the creature. "It understands?"
"They possess a form of empathic communication. Our scientists have developed a working translation. It knows you're here to help its species. It will be gentle."
Gentle. The word felt obscene.
The creature shifted in the fluid. One of its tentacles reached up, stretching toward the rim of the container, and then another, and another. Slowly, it pulled itself up and over the edge, its body glistening, and dropped onto the cart with a soft, wet sound. It paused there, tentacles curling, as if orienting itself.
Then it moved toward her.
Its tentacles found the edge of the cart, then the table, and it pulled itself forward with a surprising grace, its bulbous body dragging behind it. It reached her inner thigh, and she felt the first touch of a tentacle, a soft, almost curious press against her skin. It was cool, slick, not unpleasant. Another tentacle joined it, moving upward, tracing the curve of her leg, her hip, exploring with a gentle, methodical persistence.
"Breathe," Vance said from somewhere above her. "Relax your muscles as much as you can."
Relax. Sure. Easy.
Chapter excerpt truncated at the edge.