Shallow breaths. Light footsteps. Jane Clarke pressed herself against the wall and listened to her parents argue in their room.
Dad’s voice filtered through the narrow gap at the bottom of the door. “—don’t understand why you’re so worried,” he was saying.
“It’s been two years, and she’s still obsessed! We should take her to see someone,” Mom replied. “She won’t even tell us what really happened.”
“She’s told us a thousand times.”
“Aliens, Will? You really believe she saw aliens?”
“Well, why not?” Dad sounded like he was giving Mom that half-hearted shrug of his.
“Only conspiracy nuts believe aliens are running around kidnapping children.”
“I don’t see why it’s not possible.”
Jane carefully unfolded the newspaper page she’d grabbed from the trash bin that morning, wincing at the crinkling sound it made. The crumpled headline was barely visible in the light spilling from under the bedroom door. Are aliens kidnapping children? Conspiracy theorist says yes.
“Okay, fine,” Mom said. “Let’s pretend for a moment it’s true. That’s all the more reason to have her talk to someone.”
“We can’t afford a psychologist, or therapist, or whatever you’re thinking.”
“Her teachers have been telling us for years that she has trouble connecting with other kids. I swear this has only made it worse.”
“She does great in school,” Dad pointed out, setting off a swell of pride in Jane’s chest.
“Grades aren’t the only thing that matters.”
Mom had more to say after that, but Jane forced herself away from the conversation. She crept to the end of the hall, through the kitchen, to the front door of the apartment that William Clarke and Nancy Van Camp had lived in since they’d had Jane twelve years earlier.
The door creaked as Jane pushed it open. She froze. Her parents’ voices continued, barely audible from here. She stepped into the dark hallway of the apartment complex, and the door clicked shut quietly behind her.
Although Mom had praised Jane for devouring book after book when she was younger, pride had turned to concern once Jane claimed she’d seen aliens with her own eyes and took an interest in space politics. She read everything she could find on the Star System Alliance—which, to her dismay, wasn’t much.
The Solar System had officially been invited into the alliance nine years earlier, near the beginning of 1955. The Janus System, The Aquila System, and the Ra System had been allies for nearly a thousand years prior.
But Earth wasn’t new to aliens, even back then. Plenty of heroes and villains over the span of human history had claimed to hail from other worlds. No one knew the extent of what was out there before the alliance made contact, though. And they still didn’t. Despite agreeing to join the alliance, Earth hadn’t been given much information on the other star systems.
Some felt Earth didn’t have enough say or power in the alliance, while others argued the minimal communication was fine. The alliance was supposed to be for emergencies and occasionally trading resources. Travel between star systems was too difficult and expensive for any concern about aliens coming to Earth regularly and causing problems.
After what had happened to her two years earlier, Jane knew that wasn’t entirely true. She reread pieces of the newspaper article while she made her way out of the apartment building. According to theorist Dawn Teller, New York City is a prime location for these supposed intergalactic bounty hunters.
Teller asks anyone who may have seen these aliens to come forward and share their story.
The nearest payphone was right behind the apartment building, but the walk felt much farther at night, when the world was dark and every distant sound made Jane jump. This had seemed like a better idea in the daylight.
But she had to do this. She needed answers.
Two years earlier, she’d gone out with Mom to get groceries. It should have been a mundane thing, the sort of day that would blur together with all the other supermarket trips in her memory. But they’d been separated in the crowd near the store. In the desperate search for her mother, Jane wound up in a quiet alleyway behind the building.
That was where she saw them.
The woman had leathery red skin, limbs that were a little too long, and neon green eyes with rectangular pupils that glowed in the shadows. The man was similar in appearance, but his skin was a deep blue and his red eyes held cat-like pupils. They both stood at nearly seven feet, were completely bald, and wore all black.
They spoke to each other in a language unlike anything Jane had ever heard. Then, the woman took a step forward and said, in perfect English, “Hey, kid, you lost?”
“I’m—I’m okay,” Jane stammered. She took a step back toward the street.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the man asked.
“She looks like an easy target.” The woman studied Jane, taking in her ragged secondhand clothes. “Doubt many people will miss her either, by the looks of it.”
Whatever they wanted with Jane, she was lucky enough to not find out that day. She wasn’t sure if they attempted to chase her when she ran, or if they decided she wasn’t worth the effort, but she made it back to the street and into the crowd of New Yorkers. Mom found her a few minutes later.
Now, two years later, Jane entered the phone booth. “Dawn Teller,” she muttered as she scanned the newspaper for the phone number that had been printed after the theorist’s plea for stories. “Dawn…”
She hadn’t even made it halfway down the page when movement outside the booth made her heart skip. Her gaze darted to the shadows at the edge of an alleyway entrance.
A figure stood with their back to Jane. The clothing, the black hood over their head, the height and stature—Jane recognized it instantly. The figure’s head turned to the left, offering the briefest glimpse of red skin.
A moment later, the alien woman disappeared into the alley.
Jane dropped the newspaper and flew out of the booth. If the woman was here, the other alien might be, too. Jane could spy on them and find out what they were up to.
When she peered around the corner into the alley, she found it empty, despite the dead end. She took a few cautious steps forward. A shadow passed by overhead. Jane spun around as the alien woman dropped from a fire escape and landed at the front of the alley, her hood down now.
“It is you!” Jane exclaimed.
The woman’s head tipped to the side. “Kids like you shouldn’t be out so late on their own. Right, Eriph?”
“Didn’t your parents ever teach you that?” came a deeper voice from behind Jane. A rough blue hand grabbed her arm.
“Hey!” Jane shrieked, her momentary excitement washed away by terror. “Let me go!”
“Sounds like she recognized you, Ybra,” Eriph said, ignoring Jane’s frantic attempt to escape his grasp.
Ybra squinted at Jane. “I don’t know. I guess she looks familiar. Let’s just get her to the hub.”
Jane fought more violently now. With his free hand, Eriph pulled a weapon from his belt. It looked vaguely like a gun, but it was too small and rounded, and it was made from a white metal.
“Someone, help—” Jane tried.
Eriph pressed the weapon to Jane’s neck and pulled the trigger. An electric pulse shot through her body. The world went black and for a few moments she was entirely unconscious. Then, she was faintly aware of Ybra throwing her over her shoulder.
Through blurry vision, Jane watched Eriph lift a manhole cover and descend a ladder. Ybra followed, moving with ease despite carrying Jane.
A weight sank into Jane’s stomach, growing with every passing second and squeezing her chest. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t protest. Could hardly breathe at all. She drifted in and out of darkness, but the fear never let up.
After traveling through a dim tunnel for what could have been anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, Eriph paused and pressed a hand to the wall. A section of stone popped out and swung open, revealing a hole for the key Eriph drew from his pocket. The three passed through a hidden door and entered another tunnel.
This was followed by more walking.
Eriph finally stopped next to a large steel door in the tunnel wall. This one slid open to reveal a space the size of Jane’s closet at home. A circle of shiny black material covered most of the floor. Eriph tapped a seemingly random spot on the wall, and a semi-transparent glowing rectangle appeared in the air.
“Get her a translator while I set the warp coordinates,” Eriph said. A flick of his wrist caused a keyboard covered in strange markings to slide onto the screen. At least, Jane was pretty sure it was a kind of keyboard. She’d only seen pictures of computers.
Maybe she had been unconscious this entire time and everything happening was a strange dream.
Ybra slid Jane off her shoulder and onto the floor with surprising gentleness, leaving Jane sitting, dazed, with her back to the wall.
“You can drop her,” Eriph muttered. “She’s human, not glass.”
“I don’t want to lose money over bruises or scratches.” Ybra crouched and held up a black sphere the size of a grain of rice in front of Jane’s face. “You can swallow this, or I can find a more painful way to get it into your skull.”
Jane mustered the strength to glare at her. “How is swallowing that going to get it into my skull?”
“It knows its way around. If you don’t have it, you won’t understand a thing that’s going on.”
“I already don’t understand.” Jane tried to stand, but her limbs refused to cooperate. “I want to go.”
“That’s not an option,” Ybra hissed. “Do I need to get out my knife?”
Jane held out a shaking hand and let Ybra drop the sphere into her palm. “What does it do?”
“You ask a lot of questions, kid.”
Jane responded with another glare.
Ybra rolled her eyes. “It’s a universal translator. Programmed with every known language. Works for reading and speaking.”
Jane would need that if she wanted a chance of escaping and getting home. She put the thing in her mouth and swallowed, grimacing at the metallic taste it left on her tongue. “How long does it last?”
“It’s permanent, unless you have it removed or upgraded.” Ybra straightened up. “Make sure you’re all the way on the warp circle.”
Jane tried again to climb to her feet. She nearly collapsed, but Ybra grabbed her arm and kept her upright.
“If she can stand now, the pulse will finish wearing off by the time we get her checked in,” Eriph said. “Maybe I should give her another one.”
“The port has guards. She won’t stand a chance of escaping.” Ybra shot Jane a warning look.
Eriph tapped the center of the floating screen, and it disappeared. A deep, monotone voice spoke. “Prepare to warp.”
Jane understood the meaning of the words, but she could tell they weren’t English.
There was a blinding white light, and the sensation of being flung through space while suspended in the air at the same time. Jane’s ribs squeezed her chest, air abandoned her lungs, her stomach twisted. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t hear anything except wind rushing past her ears.
Then they were standing on the warp circle again, only it was a different circle, red instead of black and in the middle of a large open space. And Ybra and Eriph were the ones standing. Jane smacked into the ground face first.
White. Pristine. Blinding. Jane struggled to adjust to the bright lights after so long in the dim tunnels. More warp circles in bright colors lined the floor along the wall behind her. A light shot out of one nearby, and a woman with blue skin like Eriph’s appeared. She stepped out of the circle as the light faded.
Eriph and Ybra forced Jane to her feet and off the warp. Her head swiveled back and forth as they led her through the place they’d called a port. She couldn’t watch the people passing long enough to fully process what she was looking at. There was skin in a wide variety of colors and textures, scales and feathers and tails, people that were too tall or too short. Sharp teeth. Clothing of strange materials. Too many limbs. Things that should have been limbs but were tentacles instead.
Aliens.
Aliens.
Many of the aliens had smaller ones with them. Other kids. Judging by the fear on their faces, they were prisoners, too.
Jane nearly walked into a wall and was only saved by Ybra yanking her back. They’d stopped in front of a large window set into the wall. A man sat at a desk on the other side. He could have passed for human when Jane glimpsed him out of the corner of her eye, but his pale skin was slightly transparent, he had four completely silver eyes, and his proportions were just a little off.
“You two in the system already?” he asked, his voice raspy.
Eriph nodded. “We just need a form and a chip.”
“Great.” The man reached through the hole at the bottom of the window, a small metal square pinched between two fingers. “Payment will be sent to your account once she’s assigned.”
“Arm on the counter, kid,” Eriph said. “Let him put the chip in.”
Before Jane could protest, Ybra grabbed her arm and positioned it where the man could reach. The chip touched the skin of her upper arm.
It burned. Jane cried out as the metal sank beneath her skin. She couldn’t think through the pain. All she could do was act on instinct and try to yank her arm free, but Ybra’s steel grip didn’t give her an inch.
When the man’s hand finally moved away, Jane’s skin resealed itself over the chip. The only thing left behind was a mild throbbing sensation. Jane gasped for air. Ybra released her.
“Go ahead and take her to the transport craft,” the man said.
Her captors pushed her forward again, this time escorting her toward a crowd. Jane’s eyes widened. The waiting spacecraft was so shiny it was practically a mirror reflecting the port around it. It vaguely resembled an airplane, but sharper and smaller and sleeker. Guards dressed in black and red led kids up a ramp into the craft.
The guards all had tattoos of bloody knives on their arms. Or necks. Or wrists.
“We’ll take her from here,” one of them said, nodding toward Jane.
Ybra and Eriph left without another word. Jane found herself scanning the crowd for them as she was led into the spacecraft. That was it? They’d taken her off the streets, dragged her here, and now they were dumping her into the hands of—
“This one seems pretty agitated,” a woman said. “Give her a pulse.”
Cold metal touched Jane’s neck. Another shockwave ran through her. This time, it took longer for her to come to. She was sitting down when her eyes opened. A very human-looking woman sat next to her, the tattoo on her upper arm marking her as one of the guards.
Jane tried and failed to speak a few times before finding her voice. “You look human,” she finally croaked.
The woman gave her an annoyed look. “And?”
Jane swallowed. “How did you end up here? Were you taken?”
“My family’s been out here for generations.”
Jane almost wished she could go back to the disorienting semi-conscious state the pulse put her in. Her heart beat so hard she thought it might explode. Every breath hurt. Her own voice sounded strange to her when she asked, “Where are we going?”
“You nosy kids are the worst.” The woman blew out a breath of air. “And we’re too close for me to give you another pulse—If I answer this, will you shut up?”
Jane nodded.
“We’re going to the city-planet Kronos. Capital of the Janus System. It’s a mix of people and cultures and tech from all over, Earth included.” The woman glanced at the watch on her wrist. When she tapped the top, it projected a screen into the air, casting a pale glow in the dim spacecraft. “Now, leave me alone.”
There were no windows inside the craft, so Jane turned her gaze to the ceiling. Was anyone going to find her? Rescue her? Maybe she could find her own way back.
Then the woman was standing, pulling Jane to her feet with her. They joined the crowd pouring out of the ship. Jane became one of many kids standing in a line.
It didn’t take long after that for Jane to realize what was happening. They were getting assignments. Some kids were sent to ‘the palace,’ others to what sounded like factories or warehouses. The rest were going to a lab.
The assignments were issued by a man who towered over the children and most of the guards, easily standing over six and a half feet tall. His pale skin shimmered slightly in the light, and the opal eyes he swept over the kids were cold. The sharp, hard features set into his face were a little oddly proportioned. They gave Jane the impression that the man had been carved from stone.
He wore clothing that could almost have passed for a business suit, but the blue and black material was strangely slick. It made him look important, regardless. Bits and pieces of conversation around Jane allowed her to piece together the man’s identity. It was the governor of Kronos himself, a man named Tyrso Starr.
When he reached Jane, he studied her with a raised eyebrow. “Human. From Earth?”
“Uh…” What did it matter to him? What answer would save her? Jane didn’t dare meet his eyes. Her gaze slid up to his cropped black hair before darting to the floor. “Yes.”
“Put her in the palace.”
Then he was gone, strolling away to determine the next child’s fate.