Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (42 page)

“I understand.”

“You will become less able to see your true nature — the true nature of others like you, as those beside you now. You will experience that which you shut away, yet will have no control. It will consume you. You will at times sense only darkness. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“You will be filled with falsities, things you must know. But in that dark state, as many go when the time comes, you will not remember these events. You will not recall that when you were among the light, this fate was chosen by you. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

The woman looked at Beta. She said nothing, but a small nod passed between them. Alpha felt a new breed of fear, realizing they had groupspoken but he’d heard none of it. The new fear was hollow and sharp, frightening atop his existing terror because there were none to share his emotion. He was alone, and darkness was descending. Soon they — those he now clearly thought of as
others
, having no part of Alpha himself — would add more darkness to him, filling him to the brim like an overflowing vessel. He wanted to take it all back, but the darkness was heavy, like a drape. He was alone. And that was how he would die.

“You will adjust,” the woman said. “In time, it will become as you are, and you won’t remember that there was ever a difference. Do you understand?”

“I und — ”

Alpha couldn’t finish. He bent at the waist, feeling his face contort.

He flopped onto all fours from the pain. At his sides, Beta and Omega let him fall. They were separate. They were not him. The woman was not him. The true speaker behind the woman was not him. Nobody was Alpha but Alpha.

Every muscle seemed to tighten at once. His bones might erupt from his skin.

“It is within your control,” the woman said. “The change. It is always chosen, by any who shift. It is necessary that you focus. That you do not
allow
it to happen, but in fact
cause
it to occur. To welcome the darkness. Do you understand?”

The darkness seemed to momentarily part. Finally, Alpha truly
did
understand.

He focused.

He allowed the change.

He stopped fighting the darkness and instead allowed it to change him.

He finished shifting then straightened. Everything was different. He seemed to know where he was, but his surroundings were strange. Somewhere he’d never been. He could seem to sense a force — the woman? — pushing thoughts toward him. It was odd and unusual. But he could learn to accept it, if this was how they communicated across distances, different as they were.

The woman looked to the muscular being on his left. “Take his robe. They will not accept it.”

The hairless beings removed the robe from his body. Once bare, he felt cold. But then the beings returned and laid a fine set of clothing on the table at the room’s center. He found he knew how to put the garments on and did so.

“The clothing is called a — ” the woman began.

He cut her off. “I know a suit when I see one.”

“When you are sent to your post, you will — ”

“Let’s just take it one step at a time,” he said impatiently.

The woman looked at one of the other beings. Some sort of tentacled thing, barely visible, danced with light behind her. But he’d had enough of this, and of them telling him what to do.

“The memories,” said the woman. “Have the your donor’s memories settled?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“There was an imperfection. A chain of events. In the forebear, there was an unspooling. It was regrettable but is now rectified. We have taken care in this iteration to remove discursive stimuli from the stream before passing the donor’s essence into you.”

“Great,” he said, not understanding.

“Do you remember your forebear?” the woman asked.

“My father.”

“Your predecessor, to use their word.”

“Who the hell is my predecessor?” he asked, annoyed.

“The one whose life force was terminated by a human weapon. Below. An hour ago.”

He didn’t bother answering. He wanted to go home — enough with the stupid questions.

“Is there a mirror around here?” He’d pulled on most of the human garments already but now threaded the long cloth around his neck and began to tie an intricate knot that required no effort. He straightened the strip of fabric hanging down his front and ran a hand through his immaculately combed hair.

One of the Titans waved at a panel along the wall. It slid aside. He walked to the mirror behind the panel and wiggled the tie into place. He inspected his green eyes. His white teeth. His close shave.

“Do you know your name?” the woman asked from behind him.

Of course he knew it. But he wouldn’t play parlor tricks. Alien stooge or not, he wasn’t about to jump through hoops. That hadn’t changed. Not through the Astral ships’ arrival, not though the flight from New York to Vail, not through his first marriage or his second.

“A shuttle will transport you to the mansion below,” the woman said. “You will understand it as your home. But it may take another hour or two before the donor’s memories fully settle, but they will resolve with less potential for chaos than the corrupted set did within your forebear. It is important, during that time, that you do not interact with other humans who may have known the forebear. The forebear’s updates haven’t fully assimilated with the donor’s root memories following the untimely but necessary life force cessation. You must not interact with those who may have known your donor before the sampling until gelling is complete. It is possible they will recognize undue differences between you and the donor, and we will be required to remote-terminate you, draw a new sample from the donor in his cell, and spawn a new copy to replace you. Do you understand?”

He nodded, wishing they’d get on with it and take him back down to the viceroy’s mansion. He’d had a long day, and he a granddaughter he wanted to play with.

It was stupid of the woman to keep asking him the same insulting question.

Of course
he understood.

He was Meyer Fucking Dempsey, and nobody had better forget it.

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