Page 7 of M.A.Y.A
“There is no such thing as?—”
“As shifters?” he replied. He snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those conspiracy theorists who doubt our very existence. That would make this mating very difficult.”
She rubbed a hand over her face. “I haven’t been on the surface in a long time. Not since we were driven underground into bunkers. I was separated from my family as part of a government testing group, soexcuse meif I’m not clear on the new species that formed after the wars. Oh wait, did you have wars in this dimension?”
There was a long stretch of silence, and she looked up to see if he was still there. His face was blank and didn’t show a single flicker of emotion.
“Maybe,” he started slowly, “you should tell me who you are first. What’s your name?”
“I’m…I’m a machine artillery yielding automaton. Model M.A.Y.A. Unit Thirteen.”
“M.A.Y.A. Maya? Is that what they call you?”
“No, the scientists called me Unit 13, but since I… I suppose Maya can work.” She once went by a different name. Gudiya. Her grandmother’s name from India, which translated into “doll.” It was a softer name that her mother used to say with love and affection. That her father would call out when it was time to go to school. But she was no longer that name. She’d mourned Gudiya and the person that she’d once been. That version of her died years ago.
“Maya,” he said again, and this time she felt like he was savoring the word. His firm mouth formed her name a second time, and a sharp zing, like a current, raced up her spine at the way his face softened when he spoke.
“Maya, how did you get here?”
She tilted her head, feeling a subtle change in the air but not sure what it could be. Something inside her craved the feeling of being close to him, as if she was itching to touch his skin. It was deeper than what she’d imagined attraction would be like.
Why was she so drawn to this man? This person who called himself an Alpha? A shifter? When he moved, she could almost anticipate his next steps. It was almost as if she could feel his emotions. He was helping her, so chances were that he didn’t drug her. She wondered if she was feeling off because something in her body changed when she went through the bunker portal. That was the more reasonable explanation.
“Maya? How did you get here?” He repeated.
It took her a moment to remember the question. “I escaped,” she said.
“Escaped?” A small line formed between his brows. “From New York?”
How was she supposed to explain the different portals and dimensions to this person? It was clear he didn’t know about the different portals. Based on the last five dimensions that her world had invaded, Maya doubtedanyoneknew about the bunker portals. She’d have to ease him into it.
Her fingers brushed the metal plate on her fortified arm. “I escaped from a government lab bunker. They ran experiments on humans with certain blood types. They took me away just as my family was being transported to our permanent underground bunker. I was trapped in a glass box with other humans while madmen installed a computer piece in my arm before altering my body chemistry. There are chips in my heart, my brain, and in my spine, too.”
He glanced down at her forearm. The dominance that glinted in his eyes softened to something almost…tender? Maya hadn’t seen a man look like that before except in old recordings of movies.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
The question was just as foreign to her as his expression. When was the last time someone asked her if she was hurting? He was very confusing.
“Not anymore,” she said slowly.
“Do you, ah, need to charge or something?”
“Charge? Oh, no. Not like a device. My body generates the energy it needs to continue to function. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I don’t know the extent of what all the mechanisms inside me do. I was a prisoner, a pawn, after all.”
He nodded, his posture remaining relaxed as he continued assessing her from across the room. “You escaped the lab, but how did you end up in Oregon?”
She wasn’t sure why she trusted him with the information. But since she wasn’t screaming in agony, and he’d given her space, she had to assume the best of intentions. More importantly, she needed an ally to make sure she wasn’t captured before she fulfilled the rest of her plan to close the portal.
“That’s a little complicated.”
“Try me.”
“Okay. Well, in the sixties, the government of several developed nations created a think tank to explore alternate realities by creating a series of portals. They succeeded. I don’t know all the science but basically, time is like a thread. We’re on one thread, and there are countless others that are moving in tandem. The portals were tunnels. Connections between threads. I’m not sure what happened after these connections were made, but the project went quiet, and people started discussing these portals as if they were a myth. Aliens at Area 51. Bigfoot. That sort of thing.”
Isaiah stood with his legs spread; his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m assuming that your arrival in my territory is connected to this project.”
She nodded. “You see, the project isn’t a myth, and it’s what’s saving the humans in my reality from extinction. I live in a world similar to yours, but we’re Dimension 0. The control dimension. As far as we know anyway. A decade ago, wars across my dimension’s planet broke out because of diminished resources. It started with space exploration, then a battle for territory. Everyone was driven into underground bunkers. The Coalition for Political Peace is a government agency that ran my lab. They were charged with reviving the alternate dimension project a few years back in order to invade these different realities and steal resources.”
