Manipulate (Book 1, Alien Cadets)

Chapter 10

Jonathan took the bait. “Why not?” he said, with an attempt at nonchalance. “What can they do to me, right?”

She laughed. “Let’s get out of here.”

She took him to the Hollywood Bowl. It wasn’t actually right next to Grauman’s Chinese Theater. It was several miles away, nestled into the Hollywood hills in a natural basin. It was closed to the public during weekdays. It wouldn’t open to the hordes of concert goers until 6:00 that evening for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Shara was hoping to come to the performance when she finished with Jonathan.

She snuck him through a locked gate with a wide gap between the doors. They wound around the outside of the amphitheater, up the numerous stairs until they finally emerged about halfway up the bowl. It could hold 10,000 people, making it comparable to the great Colossae of Rome, which Shara had seen on TV, but it reminded her of the giant death chambers on the Merith planet.

“Wow,” Jonathan said. “This place is huge. It’s pretty cool.”

Shara agreed. They headed down the stairs toward the stage. When a janitor came into one of the bottom sections to mark off seats with a red rope, Shara and Jonathan dropped to their hands and knees, hiding behind the stone benches. They laughed breathlessly, and Shara found it natural to kiss him, with their faces so close together.

When they got back up, he held her hand, and she swung his exuberantly.

“Aren’t you glad you came?” Shara asked.

“This is great. I haven’t done anything fun, on my own, in – ever.”

Shara laughed. “This should be a big day for you then.”

She put her free hand in her purse, fingering the small spray bottle inside. It contained sasoikeo, a very efficient neurotoxin that the Spo developed. It could be gaseous, liquid, or baked into a solid, though that was time consuming. Her bottle contained a diluted liquid version. A small amount, squirted in the face, would cause instant paralysis. Another dose, squirted up the nose, or in the mouth, or onto any open membrane of the body, would cause death.

But… she didn’t feel like squirting him yet. She was enjoying him.

Somehow, two hours later, she still hadn’t squirted him.

“This is… I’ve had a great time,” Jonathan said. “But I probably should head back now. I’m sure Greg is flipping out if he’s noticed I’m gone.”

“Do you really want to go back?” Shara said. “I mean, they basically kidnapped you right? Why don’t you just leave?”

“Oh, I would. But these – ” he gestured to the tattoo on his cheek. “I’d be easy to track, wouldn’t I? Plus I have some stuff to do for them. Then I’m going to take off.”

Shara nodded. Time to get busy.

Back in her car, she drove onto the 101 south.

Jonathan talked about his family a little bit, about the cadets. Shara didn’t really listen. He just looked so cute with his orange T-shirt and his black spiky hair. She smiled when she caught him looking at her legs.

She had to quit it. She was going human.

“You missed the exit,” Jonathan said, looking out the window now. “It was right back there.”

Without giving herself pause to think, Shara grabbed the bottle from her purse and squirted him in the face. She trained for this job for two years, she couldn’t blow it for one cute cadet and raging hormones.

Shara sat in the parking lot of the Malibu beach across from Pepperdine University, with Jonathan slumped in the passenger seat.  Coming here had been a gut decision. Shara wasn’t used to having those. The electrical nuances of her new brain would get her in trouble if she didn’t get control.

On the other hand, now that she was here, she could think of several good reasons for it. She smiled.

Jonathan was perfectly still in his seat, with a bit of drool dripping onto his orange shirt. The car air conditioner blew cold and hard in his face but he didn’t blink. His pupils were tiny dots, and every now and then his eye balls twitched wildly.

“It’s time for me to kill you,” Shara explained. She rubbed the cold bottle of sasoikeo. “The cadets go for runs here. They’ll find your body soon.”

Finding his body would be good for lowering morale and building fear and frustration, which was part of her larger plan. It would undermine the whole group. Except…

“Except I don’t feel like killing you,” Shara told him. “And don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind killing.” She used a Kleenex to wipe his drool. More eye twitching.

“I’ve killed on Rik more than once. I’m aggressive and I lack empathy – that’s why I was chosen. When I landed on Earth I killed a homeless guy that was camped too close and saw my ship. I don’t mind killing.”

She brought the bottle close to Jonathan’s mouth. Her finger quivered over the button and his unfocused eyes swirled past her.

“Ugnh,” she said, tapping him on the nose with the bottle, not squirting it. “I don’t want to.”

Jonathan wheezed.

“You might die anyway,” she told him. “If I leave you here you’ll die of dehydration in forty-eight hours if they don’t find you. And this stuff will be eating away at your brain. You won’t remember me. You probably won’t remember yourself…”

Shara held it over his nose. “You don’t want to live that way.”

But she didn’t squirt.

“I don’t really need you to die. I needed to mess up the plans for the trial and give Greg and General Gustav a big problem.” She bit her cheek. “That’s done.”

Shara sighed and stuck the bottle back in her purse. She went around and opened the passenger door and lugged Jonathan out by his armpits. She was in good shape, but he had six inches on her. It took three minutes to drag him to the edge of the parking lot and settle his head on the sand. His dark eyes twitched ceaselessly, the black irises skittering around like a Rik housefly. She carefully closed his eyelids. That was better. Now he looked like he was sleeping. Shara patted his forehead and went back to her car.