Page 7 of The Alien’s Mate

Dr. Bryce hummed. “We need to constantly monitor his values, to make sure he’s healthy. At first, we were afraid he wouldn’t survive here on earth, but he seems to have adapted. It’s fascinating, really.”

“Yeah,” Lila mumbled and settled her big eyes on the large alien again. “Fascinating.”

He looked at her, as well, and a deep, intrinsic need arose inside of her—she wanted to communicate. This wasn’t fair; he wasn’t an animal! He was a prisoner!

Melinda was quickly done and joined Lila by her side once more, now carrying a vial of Atlas’s blood. “We’ve tried different types of environments for him. At first, we thought he would be most comfortable in humid climates, but that didn’t work. Then, we tried deserts, and that didn’t work either. I guess we thought he might be a bit reptilian, because of his skin, but we were wrong. This one seems to make him most comfortable. It’s a big enclosure. Huge, actually. It even has its own weather system, and we have installed a complex surveillance system to keep track of him. It cost Mr. West and Dr. Howland a fortune to build, but they believe in the project. We try to keep him moving, keep him in his ultimate shape, so we let him hunt his food. We have a deer farm just a few miles away from here. Sometimes, when we notice he’s bored, we let in another predator to contest for the food.”

It was more of shock than of will that Lila looked away from the alien and snapped her head at Dr. Bryce. “You let him hunt his own food? Inside a cage? That’s cruel!”

“Crueler than keeping him in there without any activities?” Melinda was unfazed by the criticism, as with anything. “We do what we can to keep him satisfied, but it’s difficult to know what he wants when he doesn’t even try to tell us.”

Lila wanted to bite back, but she had no retort. Melinda was right; they could only do so much. The thing he wanted the most was probably to be released, but since he didn’t have a ship to return home with, it would mean releasing him into the world—and that could be the end of it.

The big creature slowly walked toward them, his long, black tube-dreads swinging behind him. He stopped by the glass, his breath casting mist on it, as he stood just in front of Lila and gazed down at her.

“He’s intrigued,” said Melinda. “Good. Keeping you here might make him a bit more compliant.”

Lila swallowed and gazed up. He was so large, towering over her like a giant. Melinda made it sound like the alien liked her, but to Lila, it felt more like he was thinking about how easily he could kill her. Perhaps that was the same thing.

“Do you want to stay for the hunt?” asked Melinda. “We could watch it on the monitors.”

Feeling nearly faint, Lila shook her head.

“Okay, let’s go back up, then.” She pressed the button on the screen and said, “I’ll see you later, Atlas.” She signed something to him, and his eyes almost seemed alarmed before his face turned into an angry, terrifying scowl. He bared his teeth once more, and his large, clawed hands tightened, but Melinda only rolled her eyes. “She’s coming back, you brute. Don’t you worry.”

As Dr. Bryce turned to walk away, Lila hurried to follow. She threw a glance over her shoulder and saw the alien glare at her from behind the glass. She hurried after Melinda, her heart racing. When she threw another glance over her shoulder, Atlas was gone.

CHAPTER 4

THE BETRAYAL

~

Nothing made sense anymore. She kept seeing the alien’s, Atlas’s, gaze in her head, kept feeling the rumbles from his growls. It was as if she felt the anger in them, the hopelessness. He was trapped, imprisoned. In all the stories she’d heard while growing up, people were being abducted by aliens and subjected to strange experiments—but now, Atlas was the abducted one, and they were the abductors doing the experiments.

This must have been the ethical problem Mr. West talked about, Lila thought. How could anyone do this without feeling regret? Melinda managed because she thought of Atlas as an animal, but Lila could tell that he wasn’t. Not more than she was. There was intelligence in those predatorial eyes, but also terrifying fury.

After their first meeting, Lila couldn’t stop thinking about Atlas. She couldn’t stop thinking how miserable he must be inside that cage, no matter how massive it was. Was it really worth it? Was it worth the potential of a universal cure?

But sacrifices had to be made. She knew that. One life could save billions today, and trillions in the future. One person’s—creature’s—suffering could mean the end of suffering forever. History was filled with such sacrifices, and they had all made humans better. It was for the greater good, she kept thinking. The greater fucking good.

That afternoon, Lila joined Melinda as she analyzed Atlas’s black blood. Just seeing all the findings almost gave her an existential crisis, but she was also intrigued.

“It’s fascinating,” nodded Melinda when she saw Lila’s big eyes. “His DNA is almost identical to ours—but different. His body works very similarly; his skeleton resembles a human’s, only stronger, he’s got a pair of lungs, one heart, one brain, a lymphatic system, kidneys, a stomach—everything. But his muscles work differently; they grow differently, so he’s stronger. They need less oxygen, so he’s more tenacious. We don’t even know if they need oxygen at all, or if they simply use it because it’s here.” She opened a freezer and grabbed a sample on a platter and placed it underneath her microscope. “Take a look at this. We cut a small piece of his arm, and the wound healed in just a few minutes. We took a tiny sample of his tissue, and it’s extraordinary. The healing capacity is… well, it’s like a superpower, from a comic book. The cells keep rejuvenating and changing, as if they’re learning from mistakes.”

Lila gazed into the microscope. Adjusting the lens, she saw the cells working fervently to heal themselves as they warmed from the freezing temperatures.

“We’ve tried to synthesize it,” said Melinda, “but it doesn’t matter how alike his DNA is to ours—it’s still not human. We’ve tried with rats, but we’ve never succeeded. The closest we’ve come is to not kill a rat. At least not immediately.”

Lila gulped. How many years would it take to succeed? How many years would Atlas have to be trapped inside that box ?

Her whole day was somehow destroyed by seeing that poor thing behind that glass, and no matter how extraordinary his biology was, she felt such sadness.

* * *

Weeks passed inside the facilities, and soon turned to months. Lila followed Dr. Bryce to Atlas’s enclosure every day, and she got to watch the linguists try to communicate with him. Melinda insisted that Lila joined them because he seemed more accommodating when she was there.

The linguists tried to talk to him, but even though he seemed to utter words, there was no chance any of them could understand what he was saying. They understood rudimentary words, words that Atlas could say while pointing at something, but his alien tongue was so deep and strange, it was difficult for anyone to distinguish words from the sounds. It didn’t seem to work like any human language in the world.