The Alien Mind (free)

Where Death Awaits

RIVI WAS LED BACK TO THE CELL WHERE she sat on one of the empty benches and bowed her head and shoulders. Dan stopped pacing and came to sit beside her.

"What did this One want?" Dan asked.

"They don't want anything but to break us, or use us to secure our planet's surrender," Rivi croaked. "Apparently, the children and I were supposed to have united the galaxy, in the future, against the Aruk, who wish to divide everyone so they can rule over the entire galaxy."

"How could they know that? The future hasn't happened yet."

"Some of the Aunantet are futurity histographers. They can see and even travel to the future."

"So, because they've seen the future, they think you and the other children will be in their way, and they want to do away with you all now?" Dan asked.

"No, they want us broken—spineless—to give in to them," Rivi said, shrugging and letting her head droop, as fresh tears fell into her lap. "They destroyed one of the children's ships when the children fought back. My friends—"

Dan's eyebrows creased in despair knowing that, according to Rivi, many of the children were younger than her.

"Rivi, listen. They had to make a choice: either fight back and risk being killed, or give up. Your parents wouldn't have wanted you all to come this far, survive this long, learn so much, and then just give up," Dan said.

"My parents!" Rivi replied, eyes ablaze and a look of disgust on her face. "My mother gave me away. She said she had other things to do besides raise me."

"She told you this?" Dan asked quietly.

"She didn't know who I was, exactly, but she did say that to the visitor who came to her cell on Mars."

"So that's who you went to visit," Dan replied quietly, then brightened. "Maybe she didn't mean it. Maybe that's just what she made herself think after you were taken. We've got to keep up hope. There's got to be some way out of here."

Rivi sighed sadly. She'd never shown anyone everything that had happened in her past. No one knew what she knew—the many tortures she'd seen and endured, what happened when someone tried to escape—but Dan seemed so sure they could escape. If they tried to leave ...

Too many memories started to flood in and overwhelm Rivi: memories of her mother turning away, memories of the Aruk, horrible memories. Rivi covered her face as tears ran down her cheeks.

"Rivi," Dan asked quietly, "even if we do end up staying here, wouldn't you feel better if you came to peace with your memories? Maybe it would make you stronger in standing up to the Aruk."

Rivi dried her tears with the back of her hand. She stared blankly at the white wall across from her. Perhaps it was time to let someone help her face her past.

"Dan," Rivi asked quietly, "will you help me?"

"Sure," Dan replied. "What are friends for?"

Rivi looked at him and nodded. She picked up his right hand and held it to her forehead. Dan closed his eyes and let the images run through his mind. He watched the same horrible nightmare Rivi endured every other night, which was nothing more than her memories replaying while she slept. Rivi dropped her hand from his, leaving his hand on her forehead, and let all her memories from her past flood through both her and Dan.

Dan stiffened as he watched Rivi's vivid memories of her mother telling the Aruk to take her. He watched as the little Rivi struggled and cried to go back to her mother, who didn't even look back. He shivered as he watched the tortures Rivi and the other children endured. Then he was shown a memory where Rivi and another child were trying to escape. They ran down various halls only to be found by an Aruk, who struck out and killed the other child right in front of Rivi. Dan cringed as he watched how Rivi was tortured as punishment for trying to escape.

His spirits lifted when Rivi showed him how the Aunantet rescued and raised them. She also showed him the conversation she had on Mars with her mother. He continued to hold his eyes closed, as the connection was broken, and he dropped his hand. Dan slowly opened his eyes to look at Rivi, who was staring at her knees.

Dan laid his hand on her shoulder, and Rivi looked up at him. Sadness, concern, and understanding streaked his features. Rivi smiled slightly and nodded in return. The cell door was thrown wide open, and it banged into the wall. Rivi and Dan turned to look at the guards standing there.

"PS3- ..." The first guard started.

"She's had enough today!" Dan exclaimed, rising to his feet defensively as he stepped in front of Rivi. "Can't you just leave her alone?"

"You're coming with us as well," the guard said with a sneer.

Two more guards came in and pushed Rivi and Dan side-by-side down the hall into another room. Two vertical, metallic slabs stood in the middle of the room. On the metal slabs were straps for the arms, legs, and waist. Rivi and Dan were each strapped down. As soon as Rivi and Dan were strapped down, a stream of constantly varying voltages of electricity was sent through the straps so neither could manipulate the atoms in the straps and escape. The Aruk were covering all of their bases, taking no chances.

Rivi tilted her head back as the electricity coursed through her body, trying to fight the current and break her bonds.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Twelve said, smiling as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "You see, today, One decided that the best way to break you would be to kill your friend here," he said, as he waved one of his three arms toward Dan. "You struggle, and we'll only kill him faster."

Rivi's forehead creased as she stopped struggling.

"No! You wouldn't kill him ..." Rivi replied, not so certain.

"We are," Twelve replied as he signaled with his third hand and the voltage on Dan's slab was raised.

Daniel went rigid and his eyes opened wide. Scared for Dan's life, fear and terror gripped Rivi.

"No, please," Rivi begged.

Twelve motioned again and Dan's voltage was raised just within human limits. Dan moaned through his bared teeth. Rivi turned her head away and then finally, she could take it no longer. She reached out with her mind, accessing her comp amalgamator's senses. Pain riddled her body, as she tried to find some way past the painful, pulsing noise of the containment system so she could access the Aruk's systems and shut down Dan's t*****e.

Dan turned his head painfully to look at Rivi, who was grimacing against the excruciating pain in her mind. Getting into the Aruk's system was turning out to be more than she could handle so she tried accessing her own computer for help instead. One of the Aruk guards picked up activity from Rivi's computer through his own comp amalgamator senses. He signaled to Twelve.

"You won't break through the containment systems and our computers in time to save him Rivi!" Twelve taunted.

He signaled the guard who turned off the containment system long enough for Rivi to make contact with her computer. "And we know about your little computer. Did you really think you could hide it from us? I had our comp amalgamators leave you a little something."

Rivi gasped as a computer virus flooded her mind through the link with her palmtop and began replicating and spreading like mechanical spiders inside her mind.

"That should keep you tied up," The comp amalgamator sneered.

Rivi's body began to ache as the virus spread and began attacking her nervous system. Fighting the virus required all of her strength and energy. She realized too late that it was all a trap, and she would never be able to escape her computer.

Dan, wincing through his own pain, watched as Rivi started to twitch and shake uncontrollably.

Daniel had finally reached his tipping point.

#

Guards ran down the Aruk base's hallways toward a room that had called for reinforcements. Inside that room, the place was in chaos. Aruk were lined up against the walls, and various sharp objects flew around the room toward any Aruk who dared move. Dan's eyes were fierce, his mouth scowling in concentration and determination. Every muscle in his body tight, his fists clenched against the straps holding him to the table.

Dan closed his eyes, battling the rising voltage of electricity biting at his strength. Locking his jaw, he snapped the bonds holding him to the table. He walked over to Rivi, and his face softened slightly as he placed a hand on her shoulder. He saw the pain in her eyes as she fought to destroy the virus attacking her mind and energy. He touched the slab of metal against which she was strapped. He changed its atoms and pulled her through the straps that held her.

Rivi stood for a second, but Dan had to catch her before she fell. He put an arm around her waist and pulled her with him toward the open door. An Aruk had gotten out and had spread the warning. A patrol of Aruk guards was running toward them. Dan used one of the tables and repelled it, sending it flying down the hall. The table bowled the group of guards over backward before turning a cartwheel and crashing to the floor. As Dan left the room, all the flying objects clattered to the floor.

Dan turned and headed down the opposite hall, away from the guards he had just leveled with the table. He pulled Rivi, barely conscious, along with him. Dan and Rivi met a few more groups of resistance as they struggled down various hallways, trying to find a way out. Dan scowled in determination and stretched out with his mind to push the Aruks' bodies against the wall, out of his way.

Once they reached the domed room where they were originally captured, Dan looked around for a ship they could use. He knew he would not know how to fly any of them. Still barely conscious, Rivi pulled the cube out of the sphere on the necklace around her neck. She handed the small cube to Dan, who obligingly expanded it and helped her through the cube's wall.

"I can't, Dan, I ... Computer virus—" Rivi stuttered, suddenly going limp. Dan lowered her to the floor of the cube.

Dan changed the molecules in the cube so drastically that the cube went hurtling up and smashed though the top of the dome's roof. Decompression alarms went off inside the Aruk's lunar complex. Dan created the same type of bench Rivi had made for him on their way to Aun and strapped her onto it. He realized that, because of Aun's gravity, their cube would be pulled in soon. Dan had no idea how to change the cube into the form of a ship, and even if he could, he had no idea how he would fly it without Rivi to wire and program it.

Dan looked toward Rivi, who had gone rigid. He created a chair beside her and strapped himself in, knowing that they would soon experience a bumpy landing.

#

Dan and Rivi's cube fell through the Aun sky and tumbled down onto one of Aun's main city roads. Dan pressed his head to the back of the seat, and reached out with his mind to hold Rivi still against her bench. He held his breath as they flipped over and over before coming to a sudden stop as, outside, groups of the city's Aunantet citizens gathered around the cube and halted it without touching it. Dan got out of his chair and unbuckled the straps holding Rivi. He levitated her off the bench and through the cube wall. Paying no attention to the crowd, he lowered her to the ground and shrank the cube, sending it back into the sphere on her necklace.

Dan sat down beside Rivi, trying to wake her up, concern building on his face. A few Aunantet approached and circled Dan and Rivi chattering anxiously towards Dan while they checked Rivi over.

"I don't know what you are saying!" Dan exclaimed. "Please, she needs help!"

One of the Aunantet ran forward from the farthest street corner.

"What happened?" the Aunantet asked Dan.

Finally, someone he could understand.

"It was the Aruk!" Dan explained, flustered. "They held us captive. I think they gave her a computer virus before we escaped."

The Aunantet's face faded from its normal purple to a light pink.

"She's a comp amalgamator, then. That's not good. What is her name?"

"Rivi ... Rivinaig," Dan replied, quavering, looking worriedly at Rivi and sensing this Aunantet was concerned.

"Her guardian father is Ankh, then?"

"Yes, she's told me a bit about him," Dan replied.

"Does anyone know where I can find Ankh?" the Aunantet asked the crowd of other concerned Aunantet that had started to gather in the street around them.

Another Aunantet pushed his way through the crowd toward Dan and Rivi.

"I'm heading to him now. I can take them."

Dan levitated Rivi once more and headed over to the Aunantet who spoke.

"Here, let me take her," the Aunantet said as Daniel approached. "You look like you've been through a lot today."

Dan looked at the Aunantet a bit warily.

"It's all right. Rivi knows me. You may have even seen me around. I was one of the technicians at the Human Complex. I worked in the communications section. My name's Orlon."

"My name's Daniel," Dan said, as he lowered Rivi into Orlon's three arms. "I'm not one of the 150 children. This is my first time here on Aun. It's my first time being out of Earth's solar system, as a matter of fact."

Orlon said nothing as he led Dan and carried Rivi down the road, away from the dwindling crowd.

"I heard what you said about the Aruk. You and Rivinaig were captured by them?" Orlon finally asked as they rounded a corner.

"Yes," Dan replied quietly.

"For how long?"

"I don't know, what's today's date?" Dan asked.

"Earth time?" Orlon asked.

Daniel nodded, and Orlon closed his eyes and consulted his personal computer.

"Saturday, February 15, earth time," Orlon answered, looking at Dan.

"We've been with the Aruk for four weeks then," Dan said quietly. "It seemed like much, much longer than that."

"We've been looking for the children's ships for about that long," Orlon answered as he turned down another road and led Dan over to a pink, sand-coated building with curved walls and no doors. There were windows, however, leading Dan to believe that the building was only one story tall.

"What happened?" Dan asked, as he walked through the wall and waited as Orlon stepped through, carrying Rivi.

"One of the children's ships was destroyed. The children were supposed to stay together, but the Aruk were following them too closely. They decided to split up to make it harder for the Aruk to catch them," Orlon answered. "It is too dangerous for them to be wandering out there alone. We are trying to find them so we can get them to a safer area."

He motioned off to the side again where they walked through another wall. Pictures and maps lined the walls of the room. Another Aunantet sat in a beanbag chair in the middle of the room, looking at a computer screen that sat in his lap.

"Hey, Ankh, I thought you might like some company," Orlon said.

"Not right now, Orlon. I've been trying to scan through reports from other planets on the comings and goings of visitors. However, it is slow work. Ugh, Rivi could do this much faster. Perhaps I should try to contact her on Earth," Ankh said with a sigh.

"No need, sir. She's here, but I don't think she can help right now," Dan replied, speaking up.

Ankh turned his head and blinked his eyes a few times.

"Do I know you, son?"

"No, sir. I'm a friend of Rivi's from Earth," Dan replied.

Ankh suddenly realized Orlon was carrying Rivi. He dropped the blue, glowing screen he was looking at, and it clattered to the floor, unnoticed, as he jumped from his chair. His form flickered from his sudden movement as he rushed to Orlon's side.

"What happened?" Ankh asked, as he led Orlon over to a cot that was across the room.

Orlon laid Rivi down onto the cot gently.

"Three words: Aruk, computer, and virus." Orlon said.

"Seeing the Aruk again couldn't have gone over well with Rivi," Ankh said.

"They were with them for a month in earth time. On top of that, it looks as though they've given her a computer virus that is more interested in her than her computer," Orlon answered. "I don't even think I would have tried fighting that one, especially if it's knocked out Rivinaig."

"Someone's got to do something!" Dan replied from across the room.

Dan was unsure as to what he was supposed to do. Part of him wanted to run for help. The other part of him believed he needed to be here. He shifted from one foot to the other, anxiously watching Rivi.

"I'm afraid we can't, Daniel, which is why I brought her here instead of straight to a healer," Orlon replied. "Computer viruses are usually pretty harmless to a living being, except when it has been programmed to attack an amalgamator's mind. The last time I saw this type of virus, the healers who tried to help the comp amalgamator died along with the amalgamator. Unless the developer of the virus gives her the anti-virus, Rivi could end up dead or worse."

"You see, son, a healer normally heals the body. Occasionally, they can help with healing a person's mind, if the person is willing. But in the case of a computer virus, it is impossible. A healer's abilities are incompatible with trying to defeat a computer virus, and the virus will often attack them in return, which would end up being fatal, as a healer has no way to defend himself." Orlon explained.

"While all of this is going on, the healer would be witness to all of the amalgamator's memories. If the amalgamator doesn't trust the healer, or tries to block the healer in any way, it would, again, be fatal for both of them. A computer virus is not like a normal cold virus. In a comp amalgamator, it is much worse. It drains them of their strength and eats away at their mind and their will to live."

"Rivi ... probably won't last the night." Ankh said sadly, choking on his words.

Dan bit his bottom lip and looked at Rivi. Rivi twitched and shivered on the cot, then suddenly, she sat bolt upright. She grimaced and held her head in her arms. She shook all over and, though she did not make a sound, it was apparent she was in pain.

"It'll only get worse," Orlon said sadly, reaching out and putting a hand on Ankh's shoulder.

Ankh's expression deepened with sadness, and his form slowed its flickering as he came out of the future timeline. The future wasn't looking good. He didn't want to see how this would turn out.

"Not if I can help it!" Dan replied with determination, striding across the room and sitting beside Rivi.

Ankh reached out toward Dan.

"There's nothing you can do, son."

Dan wasn't hearing it. He gently took Rivi's hands from her head and placed them in her lap. Rivi relaxed slightly, and Ankh and Orlon watched in shock as Dan placed his right hand to her temple. He went rigid and then closed his eyes, relaxing but continuing to hold his hand to Rivi's head.