Page 1 of Trak
One
There were hundreds of women, all lined up in two long rows like cattle. The one thing they had in common was they were all fertile and healthy. About a million tests and exams had confirmed that. Anna Baker stood there, shivering in a short white robe bearing the logo of a company being paid well to organize this dehumanizing and shameful process. She hugged herself as she waited to be judged and measured and, perhaps, chosen.
They stood inside a huge aircraft hangar in an undisclosed location, everyone having been blindfolded when transported here. They’d been told to be silent, or they would be ejected. A few had been, after getting cold feet and panicking. Anna couldn’t blame them. After all, the women who stood here were being given a chance to be matched with a Virilian male. Analien. In return, they would get a one-time payment of five million dollars.
What made it appealing was that the match wasn’t permanent. The Virilians badly needed offspring after some virus had killed most of their females. Human women were biologically compatible. It was a simple transaction. Anna looked around at her fellow hopefuls—maybe that wasn’t the right word—applicants. Everyone looked at least a little nervous.
Anna didn’t know what motivated the other shivering women to enter this insane contest, but she surely wasn’t the only one suddenly thinking that maybe five million wasn’t worth it. Whoever was chosen was expected to conceive, carry and deliver an alien’s baby. The application had made it clear that there’d be no test tubes involved, and to not apply if they had any objections to a sexual relationship with a Virilian male.
Virilians were absurdly attractive, and when Anna had filled out the form, all those months ago, her focus had been on how desperately she needed the money to continue her brother’s medical treatments, not the rest of it.
There were so many women here—more beautiful, with bigger boobs and better hair—Anna figured her chances of being picked were slim to none. This was just a pilotprogram. Only ten women were being chosen to be matched with Virilian males. If it was successful, they’d consider expanding the program.
A voice boomed over the loudspeaker. In at least ten languages, a male voice repeated an order for them to remove their robes.
Anna felt sick as she watched a few more women dart from the line and be escorted to waiting vans. She swallowed back a roll of nausea and considered running, too. But if she did, she wouldn’t get the five thousand dollars offered for standing through the process. Sheneededthat five grand, so with shaking hands, she reached for the tie at her waist, pulled it open and shrugged the robe to the ground. In one of her many, many jobs, she’d done a stint as a topless dancer, so she tried to think of it as that—just a performance.
“Arms to your sides,” ordered the disembodied voice through the hangar. “Face the center aisle.”
They did as told. Anna faced the row on the other side. The women stood shoulder to trembling shoulder.
The massive hangar doors opened, letting in a powerful gust of cold air. The women cried out at the cold, but discomfort was forgotten as a large shuttle craft slid into the hangar. The doors closed again. All eyes were on the craft. Anna thought it looked pretty rough, rivets all over the hull, as if metal plates had been hastily welded together, but everything looked junky compared to the sleek, beautiful Baylan ships belonging to the other alien race that were all over Earth now.
A ramp lowered. Anna drew in a collective breath with the group of women. Instead of seeing a rowdy group of Virilian males, an older Virilian female descended. She was tall and strong. Her skin held only the slightest of creases, and a long flow of hair fell down her back, which ended in a long, blue tail tipped with a sharp barb. She walked slowly. Two serious Virilian males accompanied her. Each carefully held one of her arms as they guided her down the ramp and onto the concrete floor. The males were breathtaking, honestly. Even Anna had to admit that. Tall and muscular, with strong bones and the faces of Roman gods, they wore a mix of bands around their wrists and snug leather pants that outlined enormous packages between their legs. Tattoos slithered over their chests and down their arms. These males were not for them, though. They were this female’s personal guards. They kept their gazes straight ahead. It became apparent why the female needed the assistance: she was blind. Her eyes were opaque white and unseeing as her gaze passed over them without focus.
In her hands were a collection of chains bearing pendants with different coloredstones. Realization slammed into Anna—this blind female would be choosing them. How, she couldn’t fathom, but the female walked slowly down the aisle, passing her milky gaze over them all.
The female stopped. She felt through the necklaces and carefully chose one. Then, she turned toward a woman standing there and raised her hands to fasten it around her neck. Anna saw the chosen one—a beautiful, tan-skinned woman with long black hair—clutch her hands in front of her. She was nervous, obviously. There was no word from the Virilians, who simply continued their slow march down the aisle. Shortly after, the female chose another necklace, for another woman.
Anna could hear the sighs of relief; she could see the physical relief in many of the women who were passed over. They would be grateful to leave here with five thousand dollars in their pocket for one day’s humiliation.
The Virilian female drew closer. Anna held her breath. Her heart made a wild, thunderous beat in her chest. So many had been skipped, surely she would be, too. The woman next to her whimpered as the Virilians stopped in front of her. The female shuffled through her necklaces. Anna could see that they had short chains with thick links. A medallion hung from each with a different stone in the center. The female drew one out that held a smooth clear stone.
Anna was frozen. The female could turn to the woman across from her, or either of the women next to her. Surely it wouldn’t be her. Surely it couldn’t…
The female turned to face her directly. Close up, Anna could see the milky haze swirling over the female’s pupils, and the gentle smile that did nothing to ease Anna’s rising panic. A warm, floral scent enveloped her. Still, she thought,it can’t be me.
She watched, frozen, as those long fingers reached out with the necklace and clasped the cold metal around her neck. The female murmured something she couldn’t understand. Warm fingers briefly touched her cheeks, and then the female and her male escorts turned away and continued down the line of women.
Anna couldn’t breathe. Her vision was all but grayed out as the reality of her situation slowly sank in. One of the women standing next to her rubbed her arm reassuringly, but she barely felt it.
Five million dollars would be her ultimate prize and she would be earning it. She needed the money, for sure. Her brother wasn’t going to get the proper treatment for his rare cancer without it. Not with the constant insurance battles that were holding up the process, and not with their father’s debts and fines and current incarceration. This wouldsolve all their problems. Anna should feel some happiness about that, but she could barely breathe.
Anna stood there. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. At some point, the Virilian female gave out all her necklaces and made a slow path back to her shuttle. Another gust of wind and it was gone. The women who were chosen were grabbed roughly and pulled away from the group. Anna only vaguely registered the chaos. Women struggled to put their robes back on as military personnel poured in. They herded all the women back to windowless vans to be returned to wherever they had come from—all except for the women with necklaces.
Two men dressed in military gear seized her arms and propelled her outside. Naked, in the freezing cold, Anna’s fear took over.Yes, she knew what she’d signed up for, but they were not told it would be likethis.
“I—I need to say goodbye to my brother,” she protested, teeth chattering. “T-they told me I could s-say goodbye.”
“They told you wrong,” snapped one of the guards in an accent she didn’t recognize.
Outside was a barren stretch of desert that seemed to go on forever. It was night. She could see little aside from a semicircle of shuttle ships hovering a few feet above the ground. The ten women chosen were separated and each loaded onto separate ships destined for their Virilian mates. Aliens of all different types, including Virilians, emerged from the shuttles. They checked the women’s necklaces and brought them aboard.
Anna was the only one with a clear stone in hers. The military guards handed her off to a pair of aliens. She’d never seen aliens like this before. They were short, with pale gray skin and piglike snouts that took up most of their faces. They communicated in a series of clicks and hisses, and they were rough as they grabbed her arms and pulled her aboard one particular shuttle.
Inside, it was dark, cluttered with shuttle parts, and it smelled of fried electronics. One of the aliens grabbed her ankle and fastened a shackle to it, connected to a two-foot-long chain. The alien threw a scratchy blanket to her, then disappeared with its partner to another part of the ship. Anna stumbled to the floor and wrapped the blanket around her. The shuttle began to move. She could feel it lifting, taking her away, even though she couldn’t see out. With hard metal grating beneath her, and no idea where she was going or what was going to happen to her, Anna curled up and gritted her teeth. She’d gotten through worse, she assured herself, butreally?
She thought again, not for the last time:What have I done?
