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Chapter 102 - Dhark

Allison rushed off to get changed into her spare clothes, basically one of her old SAF pt shirts from basic training and some black yoga pants. She grabbed a sandwich and a bag of blood from the tray left in her room. She knocked on his door when she got back. He looked up from his bed. There was a Synthlin giving him an injection. It bowed and hovered off; It was hard to tell how to gender the Synthlin unless they spoke. Dhark motioned for her to come in. She walked in and sat in a chair at a drawing desk. She looked him over. He looked tired.

“Hey, if you’re tired, I can go eat in my room.”

He shook his head.

“No, no, it’s alright. I get tired out fast.”

He started on his food. Allison pulled her sandwich out of its wrapping and started eating it. It was a vegetarian sandwich that tasted like someone put cream on cucumbers. She shrugged and ate it. She used the blood to wash it down. He saw her fangs and pointed.

“You do have fangs… what the heck?”

Allison shrugged. Her fangs sunk back in after she finished the last mouthful of blood she’d been gulping down hungrily, mostly because she hadn’t had any all day.

“How does that even work? You have retractable fangs?”

Allison giggled.

“They only come out when I’m angry, or drinking … what I need to drink. I can force them out but I kind of look like I’m trying to uh… get something else out and its sort of not a great look.”

He looked at the bag she’d just sucked back like it was the best thing in the universe.

“Must be good stuff.”

Allison sighed.

“Not as good as the real thing but pretty close.”

“Real thing? What is it?”

Allison blushed.

“It’s just a special diet.”

He laughed.

“What is it? You’re seriously not going to tell me?”

Allison sighed; She really didn’t want him to look at her differently. She shook her head.

“It’s blood. I have to drink blood.”

He looked at her like he thought she was messing with him again. She gave him the bag and he read it over.

“Human blood. Is it like… are you cannibals?”

He looked slightly disturbed. She moved to stand up.

“Yeah, sorry, I made it weird, I’ll go.”

He reached out and touched her arm.

“Hey, it’s okay I’m just confused.”

Allison sat back down and twisted her sandwich wrapping paper in her hand.

“No, we’re not cannibals. We have these… people called vampires. They are clinically dead but alive. They can only drink blood, sun burns them up… Anyway, one of my biological mothers was a vampire. So here I am. Half-bloodsucking monster. I need blood and food.”

“But if they’re… dead, how do they have kids.”

Allison shrugged.

“A lot of money and crazy scientists, its complicated. I dumbed it down. Anyway, I need to drink at least five hundred milliliters of blood a day. Unless I’m really active in which case it could be as much as a whole human. But we have synthetic blood that works so that’s what I drink.”

He looked at her.

“But you’ve tried the real thing?”

Allison blushed and looked at the floor.

“A few times. It’s hard to resist when I hear the heartbeat and they’re close and then suddenly fangs.”

He was very interested in the topic now.

“Only human blood though?”

Allison shook her head.

“No, I’ve tried… uh Silwrath… umm Sal’nash, which was disgusting but uh still worked… uh weird alien race one? I don’t know, they wore this yellow chitin for armor. The best was Qual’sa but it’s not like you see that around often.”

He moved so his legs hung off the side of his bed.

“So, like, you ever see someone and are like, I wonder what they taste like?”

Allison blushed. She had totally had that thought way too often.

“Well, yeah, I guess. I know it is messed up. Like… drinking it is like the best drug you’ve ever heard of mixed with the best food all in one. The synthetic kind is just… boring. Like it is sustenance it tastes good, but someone’s blood right from the vein it is like you can feel them inside you… like if they’re happy, you get this feeling of euphoria. Like, I don’t need to kill people and if I’m not being… well messy it heals really quickly. It’s just really hard to stop. When it comes to blood it’s like I can never get full.”

He nodded.

“So, it never goes away? Like you always want it?”

Allison nodded.

“Like I know I don’t need any more, but I want more. I guess it’s worse for real vampires. If they don’t get it, they just kind of shrivel up, but for me it’s like I just end up cranky and get tired easy.”

Allison looked up at him.

“Okay now that I told you my deepest darkest weirdest secret, I’m going to ask you the uncomfortable question, why are you here?”

He laughed.

“Genetic thing. Nothing that can be fixed. Something just goes wrong with us sometimes and we stop being able to move our muscles and we stop breathing. I get treatments but I still get tired really fast. The treatments don’t fix it, and they don’t work forever. They are trying but ah well.”

Allison bit her lower lip.

“Where are your parents?”

He looked at the ground, Allison felt her stomach drop. Dumb question. She looked up at him when he answered her.

“Died in a crash when I was six. Figures with my luck, I’d be born with this. Not like anything has ever gone right for me.”

Allison looked around the room.

“Your art has, these are beautiful.”

He smiled and looked at the floor, Allison assumed he was embarrassed. The body language of aliens was hard to decipher. She started taking a closer look at them.

“I’m jealous, apparently the only art I’m good at is death. Can’t sing, can’t write, can’t draw, can’t paint… I hated Art in grade nine. Never have to take it again. So, I just am amazed when people can do things like this.”

He coughed and held his chest. It was the first sign Allison had seen he might not be perfectly healthy. He reached for a device and took a puff, he started to breathe easier. Allison didn’t say anything. Figuring he’d already had enough people fussing over his every cough or wheeze. He got over his coughing fit and spoke. His voice sounded weaker.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“What is the most beautiful thing you’ve seen? You get to go everywhere.”

Allison smiled as she remembered evenings on Qual’sa at the palace overlooking the valley.

“I stayed at a palace for a year and a half. In the summer you could stand on the balcony overlooking this sleepy valley. Their sun would set and because of the atmosphere it would be a rainbow and it would be different every night. Then the moons would come out and light up the garden. There were flowers that glowed only in the moonlight. They would attract these glow bugs that were the most beautiful blue. The gardens took on this life of their own.”

Tears started to form under her eyes.

“But… the most beautiful thing, isn’t some planet, or star. I had a… there was a girl named Mary, she died yesterday but before she died, she managed to see her daughter for the first time, when their eyes met, and they smiled at each other. It was the most beautiful moment in time. Pure love.”

She wiped away her tears. She hadn’t thought about Mary for a few hours, it had been a nice break. He touched her shoulder.

“The memorial was for her.”

Allison nodded.

“I don’t know why I’m crying. I barely knew her. It feels like I’m an intruder in her memory. Like when that girl died in a skiing accident, afterwards at school and all the popular girls were all oh, it is so terrible… they bullied her ruthlessly, but she died, so now she was such a kind soul? It was vomit-inducing. Now they want me to be her Godmother? That kid is going to ask me about her mother and what am I going to say? She loved you very much?”

Allison let out a heavy breath of frustration.

“And look at me, ranting about something so pathetic to some poor guy who’s literally dying. Like what are my problems compared to that?”

She turned and he was smiling.

“My tortured existence is amusing to you?”

He shook his head.

“No, it is nice to have someone my age to talk too. Even if she has no fur. Everyone treats me like I’m fragile and are always so careful about what they say around me. Dude, look at my fricking ears, you think I can’t hear what you really think?”

Allison laughed softly.

“I know the feeling. If I’m not paying attention, I can hear everything… and the smell. Human boys aren’t what you’d call hygienic.”

He smiled. Allison sighed.

“I wish I could turn it off sometimes. The best I can hope for is to let it all be background noise. Usually, I just set my translator to drown it out, but I’m not allowed anything here.”

“Translator?”

Allison lifted her hair which she had down and pointed to the spot it usually sat.

“Yes, it’s like this little thing that sticks here. Transmits sound directly into my ears. It’s like uh… bone transmission. I don’t know. It hooks up to my holo-phone. I also have contacts in my eyes usually. It is so weird not having them in. Like… it feels like I’m dreaming. That’s the only time I don’t see the augmented reality heads up display.”

He sat on the bed.

“Holo-phone?”

She pointed at his tablet.

“Like a tablet, only a hologram or it projects from my contacts, but only I can see it. I honestly feel naked without the tech.”

He shrugged.

“If we were talking and you were normal, you’d have stuff around me? Just floating?”

Allison nodded.

“You’d have subtitles. I’d be able to see your heartrate. I’d know what time it was. I’d know Bit’s status. I’d know my heartrate, blood pressure, general health. Like if I get hurt it will show me where and how bad it is. I can watch holos, listen to music…”

He kicked his legs.

“Doesn’t that get in the way? Like, between you and other people. It sounds like you have this whole layer between you and the world. Sounds lonely.”

Allison shook her head.

“No, I just tune it out and if I need it to go away, I just sweep it off the display area or close stuff.”

He shook his head.

“Sounds… I donno, sounds crazy to me. Like just visual noise all the time. Do all humans use them?”

Allison shook her head.

“No, well most, but like they use cybernetic eyes usually. I can’t get them my body would just pop them out and replace them or well gobble them up and replace them.”

He shuddered.

“You replace parts with machines? That sounds awful. Like they replace their eyes.”

Allison nodded.

“Humans will replace just about anything given half a chance even the fun parts. I have a friend who replaced his whole spine and both his arms, and there is this secret agent woman, she literally is just a brain in a robot body. You see it more on our home world, out here in the colonies, people usually go for organics. I was looking forward to turning twenty-three so I could get a data-jack. Guess that’s out the window.”

He couldn’t seem to comprehend the thought of getting cybernetics.

“So, humans willingly put machines inside them? That is so horrific.”

Allison was confused.

“The League doesn’t use cybernetics?”

“No, its… barbaric. Yeah, that’s the word. You don’t have any?”

Allison shook her head.

“No, I’m too young, but I can’t anyway, because I’m part vampire my body just regenerates everything apparently so if I cut my arm off and replace it with a cyberarm it will just rip itself off and my arm will regrow, eventually.”

He did a double take.

“Wait, you regenerate body parts? Just like that? No doctor?”

Allison nodded.

“Yeah, not that… I’m complicated but it takes a lot to actually hurt me permanently. Actually, it’s never happened so… Sal’nash spikes suck though. The poison slows my healing down a lot. Like last time I got hit I got sick, which is how I ended up here and almost died. Normally I can’t get sick. Ever.”

A soothing sound rang throughout the station, indicating lights out for the patients. Allison shrugged at Dhark.

“My dress is going to turn into a sack cloth and my ride is going to turn into a pumpkin, I better get going.”

He gave her the strangest look.

“You are a strange furless girl, Allison. Good night.”

Allison waved.

“At least I don’t get hairballs.”

*****

“More news about the Battlelord. She took some time out of her busy schedule to visit children at the newly renamed Mary’s Planet Medical Center…”

Allison tossed the tablet on the bed in annoyance.

“It’s like I’m a member of the goddamned UK dome royal family. Next thing you know they’ll be tracking my bathroom breaks.”

Baby Allison looked up at her with her baby blue eyes. Allison made a face at her. Baby Allison giggled. The more time she spent with the baby girl the more weirded out she was about the baby’s overly quick development. They had covered infant development in school. Giggles were like month three. Not day three. She gave her the bottle and bounced her gently as she walked into the station from her room. She wanted to find Leshy. She’d tried to tell Ember about the weirdness but the Silwrath didn’t quite understand what Allison was trying to get at. Silwrath were more developed when they were born.

Leshy was overseeing the production of the nanite order Allison was waiting for. She looked at the teenager.

“Ah, child, I see you have been left to care for little Allison. What can I assist you with?”

Allison looked at the baby.

“Uh, this is going to sound weird but uh, I’m worried about Allie here. She’s like… getting too smart too fast.”

Leshy looked Allie over.

“What do you mean?”

Allison tickled Allie and the baby giggled.

“That. Babies don’t giggle and smile at three days old. That’s like three months old. She’s too smart. Like… not too smart, just too smart too fast.”

Leshy stroked the chin of her encounter suit.

“Ah, this would explain the discrepancy. Our scans showed no abnormalities in her when compared to human infants. However, it kept showing having a mismatch on brain activity. Odd, but no reason for concern, child. She is perfectly healthy.”

Allison looked down at the baby in her arms and sighed.

“You are going to be a handful for your parents. At this rate you’re going to be doing 4th dimensional math by the time your four.”

Allison made another face and Allie giggled.

“Are you sure?”

Leshy bowed her head.

“I assure you; She is healthy.”

Allison shrugged.

“Well come on Allie let’s get you to your mom. She should be done getting the transport loaded by now. Bye Leshy.”

Leshy bowed her head once more. Allison tracked down Ember who was actually just heading to Allison’s room. Allison offered her the baby. Ember took her.

“Ah, you took her for a walk.”

Allison nodded.

“Yes, she was getting squirmy. I hope you have a safe trip home.”

Ember’s wings perked up.

“You as well, Allison.”

Allison waved as Ember moved off to join her husband on their transport. The teenager sighed. She was bored and Dhark was receiving some sort of treatment that took an hour. Her babysitting had only taken half an hour. The news from the League was all bad. Because it all seemed to be about her. She felt like a poster child all over again. Everyone wanted to use her for their own means, and it was getting infuriating. She thought scratch that, it had gone long past infuriating. She wasted half an hour walking back and forth along a line on the carpeted hallway by Dhark’s room.

When he came back, he was in a hoverchair. He looked tired and was staring at the floor. The Yorleer woman pushing it noticed Allison before Dhark did. She spoke to him.

“It would appear you have a guest. Do you want to go to your room or a lounge?”

Allison skipped over.

“I can take him wherever he wants.”

The Yorleer smiled.

“Is that alright with you Dhark?”

He nodded. The Yorleer left them alone. He looked up at Allison.

“You seem to be in a good mood.”

Allison shrugged.

“Well, I was bored until you got out, so like, not bored! I have you to torment.”

He made a face. Allison made a stern face.

“If you keep making that face it will stay that way.”

He laughed weakly.

“Do adults say that where you’re from too?”

Allison got behind the hoverchair and started pushing it along.

“Oh, my god. Yes. My mom used to say it so much, her other favorite one is, there are starving kids in New Amazon that would love that food. This is usually when she made this thing called cabbage soup… which is disgusting by the way. Uh where are we going?”

Allison had just been walking in a random direction. He looked up at her.

“I thought you knew.”

Allison made a face.

“Like I ever know where I’m going. What do you do for fun here? Please don’t say watch the news. I can’t handle any more of that today.”

“Why? Something bad happen?”

She swore a few times under her breath.

“In the fifteen minutes I tried to watch it while looking after Allie, there were three stories about me! I swear I can’t go pee without someone putting it on the news.”

He started to laugh but ended up coughing.

“Again, my suffering seems to amuse you. I should go to Silwra and go on a bender, dance on tables naked. That would teach the Primarch.”

He kept coughing softly. He wheezed a few times. She finally decided on her room. It was bigger than Dhark’s and she needed to pack. She pushed him inside and sat on her bed. She started packing her dress up while they talked, which they did, only stopping when their supper arrived. Of course that was the sign Allison would need to leave soon.