Rijohe

“You were going to abandon us on Ultir and don’t you dare deny it,” the yeti symbiote began.

“But it goes deeper than that. We taught you the Legion command. We’ve taught you the intricacies and math needed for the advanced astrophysics. We gave you the technological capabilities that seem like magic to these apes. And look at what you use it for. Thousands of planets controlled by the Kwitle. Complete subjugation of countless species yet it’s never enough. You take and take. And now MY people are dying by this virus,” the giant ape finally finished.

Tom sat quietly as the symbiote droned on about how terrible the Kwitle have been. Rijohe had heard enough of the drivel.

“You are clearly a defective mutation of the original host symbiote. You grew from the brain of a crippled ape and it scrambled your own synaptic connections. Adult symbiotes bonded to Kwitle, such as my own, understand the necessities and sacrifices both species must make,” Rijohe responded and continued.

“You’re all connected to the original symbiote in some small way. You must just be a mutant of it that needs to be purged,” he finished.

The symbiote simply laughed deeply at his bravado.

“And how will you do that?! You’re trapped. Your symbiote is silenced. We made a replica of the same prison systems used back on your home planet. All you really have to do is sit there and wait for the Yuini to get strong enough through Tom,” the symbiote said.

“It’s comical how you keep thinking ALL of my people have abandoned me,” Rijohe said.

The yeti symbiote simply smiled as the white room flashed out of existence. A pulsar grenade had gone off outside the mattress store destroying the makeshift prison boundaries the Yuini had put in place. A team of specialized Kwitle extraction forces were surrounding the area as Rijohe’s symbiote swarmed back into him.

“Get him to the sterilization zone Finik wants an update immediately,” the team commander shouted over Rijohe as the rest of his team searched for Tom in the building.

Wait something’s wrong Rijohe thought as he lost consciousness.

****

Jennifer Perez was sick of Jon’s shit. She had ridden his nasty old bike from Walmart’s 2012 Winter Collection all the way to his apartments, and now he was too busy to even respond. She searched through his thoughts and guessed it was valid as they seemed to be going through a lot of nasty shit. But still you know.

Instead of waiting for any orders, she decided to just break in old Mr. Beasley’s apartment through his window since she didn’t want to waste her bullets and shoot off any locks. Jon lived in the worst apartments in town, she saw palmetto bugs and giant rats everywhere, and she took a mental note to tease him about it later. To Jennifer the last few days were more than just hell on earth so she had to find something to laugh about. If she honestly had more time to process it all she would be inconsolable. Instead she distracted herself from her own missing husband and kid by searching an old man’s house for a radio.

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No look at his neighbors house for the radio thought Hale.

Hale only spoke to her and Sonia and when he did she paid attention. The poor old guy was more traumatized about all of this than she was and that was saying something. The aliens came during the morning of his 30th year anniversary.

He drove a brinks truck for years, was retiring, throwing a giant anniversary party, and now has to deal with aliens, what a shitty deal she thought.

The other neighbor's place was even more disgusting and in disarray but she did hear something that sounded like static in the far back room.

I think I’m hearing something he might legit have a radio she thought to Hale.

Ok good be careful Jen Hale thought.

Jen did you hear me? Jen?

****

“Meld,” I commanded the small, shaking woman.

“If they sound off it’s just the translator,” Cindybot told everyone as I experienced flashes of the woman’s tragic life. Mai, Izumi, and Emi were all horribly emaciated. They were your everyday Japanese Disney World tourists in their late twenties that had taken a trip to Jon's beach town not too far away. This ended in disaster as they were tricked by an older friendly local at a quiet beach bar. Mr. Hisui at first kept going on about how good it felt to speak Japanese with his own people again, and disarmed the women with his kind demeanor.

When they offered to take him back home since he “couldn’t figure out” Uber, he invited them inside for some traditional miso and stories about his wife. Thinking nothing of it, the women happily accompanied him. The miso itself led to their eventual entrapment as it was drugged.

Minion Heal brought them out of near death but their physical deforming would take longer to fix. They had been in the small room for weeks. Eric Hisui had been keeping them back here as secret pleasure slaves but sometimes that wasn’t enough for his twisted mind.

The women were scarred in more ways than one. I thought he seemed so normal but as I ran through each of their thoughts it turned out to be anything but that. They were being kept in horribly unsanitary conditions and if I met the man I would make sure he was treated the same way.

Then when I thought I couldn’t feel worse it suddenly felt like someone stabbed me with a hot razor in my left temple. Pain exploded in my head and I struggled to stay standing.

“We just lost Jennifer,” Cindybot said. She looked paler than I thought possible.

I was still trying to recover from the pain, but I could tell she was right. The chain link rope to her in my mind was gone. I didn’t feel anything off before Jennifer went into that neighbor’s room so it must mean either she was ambushed and killed, or another challenger took her from me. Both conclusions were grim. Hale was panicking through our link begging me to run and check it out immediately.

“Fuck. What’s the cooldown left on the Warp skill?” I asked my AI.

Can you go scout the grocery store? Are you ready for that I thought to Michelle. I still felt fear from her.

It’s not my fault Juli lied in a whisper of a thought.

“You have 10 hours left before it could be used again,” Cindybot replied.

“Likelihood that Jennifer is alive? Can you check an AI network or something?” I asked.

“In a way but we have protections against that, so other challengers can’t see what you’re doing,” she responded in a muted tone.

Please Jon please go check. What do I have left? Hale thought. He was still back with Kendall at the shelter and in a horrible state of panic.

“So it’s either one guaranteed trap at the apartments or one maybe trap at the grocery store,” I said while putting my head in my hands. The rest of the girls were trying to get Mai and her friends used to the link but the entire experience was a shock. They went from one type of servant to another with Rijohe's command, and then yet another with us in the space of a few weeks. I would have to leave more people than I wanted behind for this one.

"Sometimes bro, the side quests lead to the main quest through the powers of friendship," Julio tried to say with faux wisdom. George and Lonnie looked confused.

I wish it was him instead Juli thought.