Abduction

The house was dark- or at least what passed for dark here, great globs of moonlight still seeping through the windows and across the gleaming countertops.

Mil moved silently to the stairs, staring up their spiraling length. They were different than the other dwellings, open to the floor below so that he knew if he looked down going up he’d start to reel worse than ever.

You’ll love it, Bin had said, of the expedition. It’s like a scavenger hunt. Everything is so exotic. If you get something really good, they might even offer you a job.

Mil felt dumb and cowardly, as he often did, but he also felt the familiar warmth flow through him at the memory of Bin. She was sure she’d be offered a second mission, and if she were to become a scientist than Mil wanted that as well: no matter how scared he got, no matter how many strangers’ stairs he needed to climb. No matter how his eyes burned.

Remember your glasses, their instructor Dal had told them, over and over. If nothing else, remember your glasses. Mil was the last drop-off that day, so he’d gotten an extra warning. He knew they didn’t call it the Burning Land for nothing, but still, he’d been shocked the first time the vengeful, corroded atmosphere had swarmed over his protected eyes. He’d been dropped off in the cover of dark, and his first daytime was a rude awakening. Mil spent his first day in a state of shock, a dull ache settling into the back of his head, making it hard to think.

It was hard to do anything that first day but observe, but that was what the first day was for anyway. The Burning Land was unlovely, its streets paved and thronging with people and noise at every hour. Their voices were loud. Their doors did not slide up- instead one grasped them and pushed in, turning a prehistoric knob. Their skies were gray and tasted of ash, like something out of sight was constantly on fire.

He wasn’t surprised by the appearance of the land’s people- he knew what to expect- but he couldn’t keep from being shocked and a little repulsed when he saw himself for the first time in a clouded bathroom mirror. His skin was clammy and fleshy, his eyes small, two singular white-rimmed points sunk into his face. The glamour Pan and Dal had arranged for him was too good; it made him uncomfortable.

He’d tried the food the first day, because he had to- spoke the language to order carefully, pushing his clumsy new tongue around his teeth and up against the roof of his mouth. When it had arrived, he’d almost choked. Someone at the table next to him at Cafe Nirvana asked if he was okay, and he’d almost shook his head wrong: no. Once he’d learned how to use his mouth, he swallowed his meal, a filled pastry, eagerly. It was really good- he immediately wanted to take notes. Mil was constantly experimenting with new recipes at home and if it weren’t for Bin, he’d easily have gone into culinary school.

But Bin wanted science. She wanted danger; she wanted exploration and discovery. And Mil wanted to see her - if they went to different programs, he’d almost never see her, not until they graduated, and by then he was sure she’d find someone else. So he was taking the preliminary field study along with her, and this, his first hands-on experience, was the final exam.

Dal had given him a list of things about a mile long. He couldn’t put it in his carapace in this form, so he’d stuffed it awkwardly in the back pocket of his strange clothing where it bunched up and he could feel it pressing into his doughy new ass every time he sat.

Some items from the list:

- a pen

- ‘100% cotton’ (reading test)

- interesting pictures (for presentation)

- one artifact of your choice (unique!)

- a dream (credit challenge)

On this, the third night of his tour, Mil had collected everything he needed. His pack was stuffed with a blanket, some photos of a lanky smiling family that he’d taken from the wall of someone’s room, and a few packets of something red and foul-smelling that the creatures here liked to spread on tubes of meat.

He’d been nervous sneaking into his first house. Another of the rules was not to get caught looking for artifacts- if you were caught they might take you somewhere you couldn’t extricate yourself from. They might bring you to one of their prisons. And if you went to a prison, if you couldn’t come to the pick-up call, then you were effectively abducted. When you were abducted, you were out of options. You had to use the final tool in your kit before your glamour wore off.

The elders were very transparent about this. Science work wasn’t for everyone. Research was dangerous, Pan had told him, looking him in all six eyes, explaining without saying a word I know why you’re doing this. It’s not too late to back out if you’re scared.

He knew she’d seen the way he looked at Bin, and though she was only trying to be kind, Mil resented her for that. He needed to prove that he could be just as bold as the rest of them, even if he couldn’t understand the fascination with studying other worlds.

Mil didn’t need to go inside this last dwelling at all, but he’d been feeling bold and expansive on this the last of nights. He’d stared at the last item on his list: A Dream.

Here in the Burning Land, people spread themselves horizontally at night, closing their beady eyes and barely moving for hours at a time. During this ritual, they created things called dreams. Little was known about the anatomy of dreams, but what scientists at home had gathered of them was that they were a type of picture show, a virtual experience of sorts.

None of the other students who’d gone before had been able to bring back a dream. Aside from having to get very close to a slumbering person in its own home, the procedure was questionable. How did you capture something you couldn’t see? But Mil, who’d come to the table scared, sensed that now was a time to prove himself. If he got to see a dream for himself, even if he couldn’t bring it back, he imagined how impressed Bin would be, the questions she’d have. The questions they’d all have. The elders would stop looking at him like they secretly pitied him, like they knew he didn’t belong. He’d climb rapidly through the ranks at school, be sent on greater and greater missions to all kinds of lands. He would get his partner of choice, and Bin could accompany him every time, the two of them adventurers, dauntless inter-world scholars.

Mil entertained himself with thoughts like these as he slowly scaled the spiral stairs, staring fixedly at a point in front of him. He knew if he looked down, it would all be over. Once he’d made it to the top, he felt a rush of accomplishment and began to think how he imagined the senior scientists did. Why did the people of this land do so much of this dreaming at higher elevations? Did it affect the quality of the dream itself?

He made some notes in his wrist-piece, then switched on his recording device, creeping softly into the room before him. An adult female lay on the bed, partially unclothed. Mil tried to avoid looking at the dimpled rolls of her flesh, the way her mouth hung half-open, a pool of clear fluid accumulating on the bedding below. Mil made notes about this too, choking down his revulsion. The creature’s eyes were fluttering, like her eyeballs hadn’t stopped moving beneath the thin skin of her eyelids.

“Oh,” she said suddenly, loud in the darkened room, and Mil jumped before he realized she was still unconscious. She muttered some more things, which Mil attempted to copy to his notes, but even in the language of the Burning Land, they were words he hadn’t learned, complete nonsense. Did the dreams have a language of their own?

Despite himself, Mil found he was hovering over the bed, staring, willing himself to understand.

He must have lost track of time, because the next thing he knew, the walls around him were lit green and he heard the humming tune of engines.

His ship was back to take him, materializing, as they’d discussed, in the forest across the road.

Mil turned and ran, down the spiral staircase again, almost falling a couple of times over the awkward legs he hadn’t become completely used to.

If they were here already, it meant his time was running out- he had to get back to the ship before his glamour wore off.

Mil tore open a door, abandoning the rule about leaving from the same place he’d entered. A shrill, beeping sound assaulted his ears as he exploded outside, and as his hands flew up to cover them they knocked the glasses from his face.

The night air, heavy with pollution, burned away at his eyes. From inside the house behind him, he thought he heard voices raised, and, abandoning the search in the grass below him, he bolted for the snake of pavement between the house and the woods. They’d scold him for losing the glasses, they’d reprimand him for being late, for causing a disruption, but Mil didn’t care at the moment. As long as he could make it back in time, he could deal with it all.

The green light of the headlamps danced through the trees, soothing his tearing eyes as he focused on it and it alone. Mil sprinted across the road.

He didn’t hear the siren, caught up in the wailing of the alarm from the house, did not look both ways as he dashed across the ribbon of pavement. He didn’t register the screaming vehicle that barreled down the road toward him.

Suddenly Mil was on the ground, his foreign body aching… and shifting. Changing.

“No!” he tried to say but the people pushed him back, restraining him.

“Calm down sir, we’ve got you,” a man says in a voice intended to be soothing. He doesn’t understand; none of them understand.

Mil strained to see beyond the painful flashing lights all around him now, and he saw the green light for one second more, wavering, blinking once, twice, three times before fading out.

“No, no, no!” Mil screamed. Someone inserted something sharp in his arm and he felt drowsy. The green light was gone- he was being loaded into the back of a white vehicle. Stomach heavy, Mil reached for the last resort, the little clear capsule in his pack…only to find his pack was gone.

The ambulance lurched into motion again. Mil heard a cough, and turned his head to see he wasn’t alone.

A little boy was lying prone next to him on an identical type of stretcher. His head was bleeding; his eyes were open. He stared straight at Mil.

“What are you?” the boy whispered, eyes like silver dishes. Mil knew that this kid saw him; his glamour was gone. He’d been abducted, and he’d never go home. His claws scrabbled uselessly at the thin sheet beneath him. He could already feel that they’d gone back to their original form, his claws grappling at the thin sheet beneath him.

“A dream,” Mil ground out in the child’s own language. Whatever they’d injected him with was strong; he was sliding under. He pictured Bin, her bright eyes and the questioning look she’d have when the ship returned without him. Wet spilled out from his eyes. “Just a dream,” he repeated. “Go back to sleep.”