HASH: Human Alien Species Hybrid Read online

  With so many scientists pushing for space, it was hard to make it to the ladder. Aric cleared a path for me, though, and boosted me up onto it to climb just behind a researcher for whom I thought I’d probably answered some questions in the past.

  I took care not to look up at her too much while I climbed. Instead, I glanced down a lot to where Aric was climbing below me, wanting to make sure that he was still there—wanting to be certain that I hadn’t somehow left him behind. Em, of course, floated along beside me like a genie rising.

  “This is fun,” she said. “We’re finally going to get to see outside, Jade!”

  I didn’t answer, but right then, I had to agree, that was an amazing thought. What wasn’t an amazing thought was having to climb this ladder. How long did it take to climb? Seconds? Minutes? It felt more like hours, with rung after rung above me, the pain in my back starting to seep back in with every step I climbed. After everything I’d been through, I wasn’t sure that I had the strength.

  At least, I wasn’t sure until I felt Aric pushing me upward. Forcing me on from below.

  “You can do this,” he called up. “Just keep climbing.”

  Just keep climbing. He made it sound so simple. But maybe it was. Just one rung, and another, and…

  When my head broke the surface, I gasped in the odd taste of the outside air. There was something so different about it, much less sterile as Aric pushed me up over the lip of the escape hatch, into the milling crowd of scientists, all apparently unsure what they should be doing next. I didn’t look closely at them though, because I was too busy looking around us.

  It was the start of dusk and thankfully because the small amount of sunlight that was peeking over the mountain in front of us, singed my eyes. I had to squint against the sun—the sun that I hadn’t seen in sixteen years. I held my hand over my eyebrows to shield my eyes from the sun’s rays and gawked at the world in front of me.

  A rocky beach spread out in front of us, while behind me, a rough-looking rise led up to a small building at the top. I could see the beach curving away around that rise on both sides, while just over a narrow strip of water, I could see a much, much larger shore.

  “An island,” I whispered to Aric. “We’re on an island.”

  We were, and even as I realized that, I saw the boat. Someone had dragged it up onto the stony shore, half covering it with a tarpaulin. Aric saw it at the same time I did. He must have thought the same thing I did, about the vehicle Dr. Stevens had promised would be waiting for us outside.

  Aric grabbed my hand and we started through the crowd of scientist, pushing past them while the chaotic sounds around us of the alarms and people trying to talk to colleagues about the system crash filled the air.

  The further away we got, the more scared I felt. Excitement and fear bundled together into a nice package of butterflies that were released in my gut. The sky was light blue, the water almost gray and patches of green grass and trees. Something I had never seen until I was taken to meet Aric for the first time. Until I stepped foot into the outdoor assimilated room.

  The water was endless, the sky nothing like I remembered. But then, how much did I pay attention to the sky when I was three years old? I glanced back and noticed that the Institute was underground with a few ports that led to the inside. I suspected a ferry brought the workers over from the mainland and they lived on this island or in the Institute.

  Either way, I wanted to get away from it. I wanted to see the world and absorb the life of people who were not in lab coats and who did not run tests on me. I wanted to be normal again.

  As we ran toward the boat, a yellow flower caught my eye. I stopped Aric, leaned down and picked the flower. I needed to feel it between my fingers. I needed to smell its nectar.

  Aric yanked the cover from the boat. Inside, there were a couple of small rucksacks, sitting on a map and what looked like a note.

  We dragged the boat halfway to the water before anyone seemed to notice us. By then, it was too late, at least with Aric doing the dragging. In seconds, we had it in the water, floating away from the shore. Neither of us had been on a boat before, obviously, but it didn’t take much to work out how the small motor on the back worked.

  The implant helped us with that.

  I sat back, voicing my biggest fear. “Let’s just hope they don’t send anyone out after us.”

  Sitting beside me, Em smiled. “Oh, they won’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Do you think everyone’s out yet?”

  I looked at her. “I guess.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt. Well, you wouldn’t, and it’s almost the same thing.”

  “What are you—”

  Behind us, the explosion was loud enough that it cut off everything I had been about to say. Flames seemed to leap up from the building on the hill, bright enough that I had to look away.

  “What was that?” I managed when I finally got my breath back.

  “Destruction in the event of compromise, remember?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “One of the files I showed you when you asked? Honestly, don’t you read the things I give you?”

  “Not when you shove a library down my throat. You mean there was actually a self-destruct system?”

  Em lay back in the boat with another of those smiles. “Who says science isn’t fun? Now, where are we going?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Aric and I were thinking the same thing at the same time, but I asked Em first. “The ship? Did you destroy that?”

  “You two really give me so little credit. I’m an advanced level Theta-Mandu-K3839 and you think I’d be so careless as to destroy something from home?”

  “You’re a what?” Aric and I said it at the same time.

  “Theta-Mandu-K3839. The K stands for key and the number is my intelligence level.”

  “What’s that and how do you know what you are?” I asked, half-scared to hear her answer.

  “On our planet, as of sixteen years ago, I was the newest model of magnetic sensory brain offered to adult Ceren royalty.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “When you accepted the implant on the operating table, you opened up a wealth of knowledge that was released to me when I entered you to electrocute that guard. It’s coming to me in pieces, so I don’t know nearly enough yet.”

  Aric crossed his arms over his chest. “The ship?”

  “It’s there. They’ll never find it, but it’s there.”

  Aric narrowed his eyes. “Come on, Em. Give me more than that.”

  “I was able to activate the ship’s cloaking mechanism. It’s hidden, as if it’s not even there. It will reappear when you go back for it.”

  “The DNA lab?” I asked.

  “Wasn’t sure where it was and only half the institution was blown up. The side that we were on. Let’s hope that was on our side of the Institute.”

  Her answers satisfied us for now. I glanced at Aric and noticed the concerned look on his face—it was the same concern that I had. We were venturing into a world we knew nothing about, with ideals that we weren’t sure even applied.

  I sighed and lay back in the boat, looking at the map Dr. Stevens had left for us, trying to get a sense of where we were, but mostly just enjoying the sensation of the sky above me. I hadn’t had that for a long time.

  I should probably have been more worried about the possibility of someone following us, but with what Em had done, I didn’t think it was something to worry about, for the moment. Besides, it was too hard to look away from that vast expanse of blue.

  Aric seemed to prefer watching the water, and I had to admit, it was just as beautiful in its own way. So was he. What would we do now that we were out of the Institute? Where would we go? How would we survive?

  I thought about the last things Dr. Stevens had said to me. About Rutherford. About Dieter Copeland. The map had Rutherford marked, along with the spot where we w
ere. The space between the two seemed so huge after a life lived in a box.

  The rucksacks had turned out to contain food, clothing, and money. All the essentials for a life on the run, I guessed.

  With Em, it shouldn’t be too hard to get anything else that we needed. It was just that, I had no idea of what we would need. The most basic things seemed so strange. I was almost as much of an alien as Aric was.

  It was probably fifteen minutes before I got up enough courage to open the note and read it.

  Dear Jade,

  If you’re reading this, then something has obviously gone wrong with our plan and I haven’t been able to come with you. In case I haven’t had a chance to explain, you need to get to the town of Rutherford and find a teacher by the name of Dieter Copeland. You will find everything you need in the rucksacks.

  That first half was straightforward and practical, the way she had always been. The second half was a little different.

  In case I don’t get a chance to tell you, I have always been so proud of you. You have been, in many ways, like the daughter I never had. Two daughters, a lot of the time, thanks to Em. I hope you can accept that I only ever wanted to keep you safe. To make the best of bad circumstances. I hope you won’t hate me too much for the Institute, or for the lies. I hope I won’t be just one more bad dream for the collection.

  Dr. Stevens (for Jade) Miriam (for Em)

  p.s. Never turn your back, never get comfortable where you are because they will always search for you and Aric. When you least expect it, they’ll be there.

  I folded the note carefully, putting it back into the rucksack. How could I hate her? Well, no, I knew the answer to that. Some of the things she had done to me were wrong. She had lied to me, helped to keep me in the Institute. Yet, she had also been the woman who had come when I had awakened screaming from the dreams, the woman who had watched me grow up—the woman who had, in the end, given her life while trying to get me to safety. If I could feel tears starting to fall as I thought about her, wasn’t that only right?

  I looked over at Em, still resting on her back in the bottom of the boat.

  “Why are you crying?” she asked.

  “Just thinking about Dr. Stevens…Miriam.” Her first name didn’t sound right coming from me, somehow.

  “Yes, I’ll miss her.” Em turned back to look into the sky.

  Aric was quiet. He hadn’t said much since Em had told him that his ship was still there, hidden from prying eyes. I reached my hand back and he grabbed it. A warm sensation traveled through me and at that moment, I knew somehow we’d be okay, we’d find our way in this foreign world.

  Em stood in the boat and against the night, quickly coming upon us she seemed lost in something. “Hey, Jade?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Have you seen some of the signals that are floating around here? There’s TV, and radio and…oh, all kinds of things. There’s this thing called an internet. Not like the lab computers, this internet can help with anything anyone could ever want to know, just kind of floating there.”

  It was nice to know that one of us had everything she could ever want. “Em, do you remember when I was unconscious and they were trying to dig you out of me?”

  Em shook her head. “Not really.”

  “So, you don’t remember a big silver version of you?”

  “Oh, her. I don’t like her. I think she wants to…” Em trailed off and went back to looking upward.

  “Wants to what?” I would have shaken her if I could. “Wants to what, Em?”

  “Shh! Can’t you hear it? Can’t you see it? Oh, it’s beautiful!” Em’s long neck was exaggerated as she tilted her head back. She actually started jumping up and down, waving her hands like she was a castaway who had just spotted a passing vessel.

  “Em, what are you doing?”

  Aric sat up and glanced upward as well. “I can’t see it or hear it. What is it, Em?”

  She ignored us. “Hey! We’re down here! We’re down here, I said! What are you, deaf?”

  A megaphone appeared in her hands. Did it represent some kind of attempt to boost a signal, or was Em just being weird?

  “I said, ‘WE’RE DOWN HERE!’”

  That was so loud that I felt it. I felt it rumbling through me. I felt it as a stab of pain where Professor Ahern had tried to rip Em out of me. I felt it as a kind of pressure inside my skull, an image of something that looked like stars. I felt all that, and I was glad I hadn’t stood up with Em, because I would have fallen into the water, if I had.

  “Em, what’s happening?”

  Em stood perfectly still, looking upward. She looked up for what seemed like forever. Then she looked down at me and for a moment, it seemed like her eyes had whole galaxies in them.

  “Oh, Jade, it’s so beautiful. There’s so much connection.”

  “Connection with what?” I demanded. “Em, you’re behaving oddly here. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on?” This time, Em’s smile seemed so peaceful. “They’re coming, Jade. They’re coming.”

  I wanted to ask her who. I wanted to ask her all kinds of things. Yet, I didn’t get a chance. Silvery light seemed to form around Em, shining from her, shining through her. It was only as that happened that I saw she was becoming more translucent by the second. There, standing in the boat and staring up at the sky, Em faded until there was almost nothing left of her.

  “Em!” I stood up, and for me, the boat rocked as it hadn’t for her.

  “They’re coming, Jade.” She just had the time to wrap her arms around me in the ghost of a hug. For a moment, I could even convince myself that I felt it.

  Then she was gone.

  Watch for Book #2

  The Imprint Trilogy

  The Secrets of Startech

  About the Author

  www.aprilmreign.com

  April M. Reign started writing poetry at the age of fifteen. She is the oldest of three girls and was lucky enough to witness the true romance of her happily married parents.

  April was born and raised in Southern California. She is a single mother of two wonderful boys, and enjoys spending time with her family. Sitting on the beach during a simple sunset is where she finds her most creative place to write.

  Please visit her at http://www.aprilmreign.com or become a friend on Facebook at www.facebook.com/aprilmreign.author. You may also check out her dating site for single people interested in getting to know others with a love for books at: www.amrdating.com.

  You may also find her at Twitter: www.twitter.com/aprilmreign