“You were just a microscope sample. A splash of human. A dash of alien. Incubated and ready to go,” he says, breathing in deep through his nose. It reminds me of Zakar.
My heart pounds, and I feel a great weight fall over my shoulders. “Lies,” I say.
He keeps speaking. “You grew up so fast,” he mutters.
Enamored, he lowers his weapon. This is my moment. I should attack, but what he’s telling me is so mind blowing that I can’t react.
Tears of adoration fill his eyes. This man is crazy. I cannot reason with him.
“I wanted to get a good look at you,” he says. “It’s been so long since I last saw your face. Oh, if you only knew what I went through to get here. Forged documents. Convinced the higher ranks I could get the job done. I did it all just to get to you,” he says.
My muscles twitch. “You disgust me,” I say.
“Say what you must. Every son rejects his father at some point or another,” he says.
“Son…?”
I swallo
w and tremble with rage building inside me.
“You were my pet project. My baby,” he says.
I don’t know what to say. Suddenly, the air feels too thick to breathe.
He takes another step forward, close enough to reach out and touch me. “I know you believe you’re a failure, but you aren’t. You are my design, perfect in every way,” Fassbender says.
His design…
“My fate isn’t yours to design,” I say.
The urge to kill takes over, and before I know it, I’m lunging through the air at him.
Fassbender is quick on the draw. I feel the bullet. The hot, twisting metal pierces through my skin, dragging all the way through my insides.
I stumble and growl, placing my hand above my face, a half-assed attempt to shield any more bullets coming my way.
He steps over me. “You may be perfect, but don’t think for a second you’re not expendable,” he says. “I know your strengths and your weaknesses.”
My blood trickles down my chest, warm and unsettling. Circling my finger around the wound, I inhale as I dig the bullet fragments out.
I cough out more blood. “What am I?” I ask.
Fassbender’s lips twitch. “A creature that can absorb the best qualities life can offer. A creature that can soak up empathy. More important for me and Earth Federation... you are a creature that will breed for us.”
I feel weaker than ever. “What are you talking about?”
“We needed a weapon. Zakar served that function well, but his anger impeded other important functions,” he says.
“Meaning?”
“He needed help with sexual activity. His sperm would not fertilize any egg. We had to concede that he was not a breeder,” he says. “So I came up with a proposition. I wanted to make one. I wanted to create an alien that would breed the bio-weapon right into the host. That way, we could build an entire army of predators.”
“But you made me first. I remember it,” I say.
“We kept Zakar out of sight until the proper time came.”
“Why did you come to this planet? You must have known your bullets wouldn’t kill him,” I say.