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Author's Note: Ok here's Ch.6, right on schedule again. I'm proud of myself :D. This is a very talky chapter. Everyone kept asking me what's going on and this is the chapter with all the answers. Well at least a good portion of them. This chapter and the next one will be very light on much of anything, except talking. I'm trying to break the story up that way. I knew going in there was going to be a lot of action so these quiet moments are always fun to write too. The picture I used this time is not really representative of the chapter but you'll understand when you get there.

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6.

What the hell?

I stood there, staring at this strange girl, holding this wicked looking spear. I would have called her a crazy nut job except I was kinda afraid to insult her. After all, she just threw a car door across a parking lot and into a building. You don’t call someone like that crazy. There was no questioning that. There, however, several other questions that I had. So many. First and foremost, clearly what I saw yesterday had actually happened. She did fight off two weird guys in the warehouse, kill one of them with that spear and...and...I couldn’t remember anymore. I only just now remembered that. It was strange really. As soon as I saw her with that spear, it just came to me.

Did she do something to me?

Make me forget?

I stared at her. She was poking at the body smeared on the wall. Or rather what was left of it. The car door had done a number on him. When it caught him in midair, it split him in half as he hit the wall. I was too grossed out by it all to really look before but now I could see it. What was left of it? Most of him now seemed to be dissolving. It was the only word I could think of. He was literally oozing away off the walls into a grayish puddle on the floor. Even that was starting to melt away too.

“What’s happening to him?”

“It,” she said, poking some of the sludge with the tip of her spear. “They are genderless Constructs. We call them Mutates. A bastardized amalgam of several different species spliced together.”

Mutates?

I nodded like any of it made any sense.

“But it's not human, right?”

She sighed. “It is not of this world.”

Well, that answered one of many questions.

I groaned. Charlie had been right. Oh god had he been right. This was crazy. Aliens were bullshit, made up by conspiracy theorists and Hollywood blockbusters. The things of superstitious nut jobs, paranoid loonies, and talented writers. Nothing more. Yet, here I was staring at one. Or what was left of one. Then I looked at her. Standing there with her large spear, glaring down at the gray muck. Maybe I was staring at two?

“Are you?” I asked.

She turned to me. “Am I what?”

I needed to be tactful about it.

“Are you human?”

She looked at me, her golden eyes no longer shined but they were just as foreboding. “Yes”.

I sighed.

“And no,” she said after a moment. “It's complicated.”

I wanted to uncomplicate this as much as I could. “Are you from Earth?”

“No,” she said, looking around.

Clearly, something was spooking her. Since coming into the building, she barely stood still for a minute. It was almost as if…

My other questions were abandoned when a more pressing matter came to mind. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

“No doubt,” she said, running a hand through that short hair of hers.

I cursed. “You’ve killed what...three…of them?”

“Ten actually. It doesn’t matter though. More will come. Mutates are like insects. Their Master can summon as many as they want.”

Master?

So that meant there was someone behind this.

A boss.

An Alien Boss.

This was all so crazy.

Shit.

I slowly started to reach for the necklace but stopped myself. Not now. I could be a nervous twitch later, right now I needed my hands where I knew I could control them. Besides, I didn’t want to show weakness around her. I had a feeling that someone like her might frown upon something like that. I mean she threw a fricken car door.

Which reminded me.

“How did you do that?” I asked, pointing to the mangled door on the ground.

“My people are strong.”

Understatement of the century.

“How strong...”

She interrupted me. “Look, you can ask all the questions you want later, right now, we need to go!”

I nodded.

She took charge, moving toward the door. I started to follow but remembered something. It didn’t dawn on me until I looked out at the parking lot. At all those cars. There were still people here. I cursed. I quickly moved back into the waiting room. I rushed the counter and looked behind it. Besides the blood, there was nothing. Cursing, I quickly rushed down the hall. She was right on my heels.

“What are you doing?”

“There are people here!”

“No there isn’t.”

“Yes, there is.”

“There was,” she said, quickly stepping in front of me, halting my progress. “Mutates leave nothing behind. It's in their programming. Its why they were so hell-bent on you. No Trace. Its how they operate. Anyone who was here, they are long gone now.”

I pushed past her.

These were people. How could she be so cold?

I went from room to room, looking. Each of them empty. That didn’t stop me though. I checked the whole place, including closets, cabinets, and drawers.

There was no one though.

Where did they all go?

Dey’ya seemed to read my thoughts because she grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”

This time I did get sick.

I rushed to the nearest bathroom. I just made the stall before puking up my breakfast. Dey’ya stood by impatiently waiting. I puked for a couple of minutes before finally stopping. I almost threw up again from the taste in my mouth. I hated puking. It was the worse ever. Name anyone who liked to puke and I’d sign them up for a psych eval on the spot.

“Are you better now?”

I wiped my mouth. “How can you be so calm about this?”

“Practice.”

I slowly pushed myself up from the porcelain throne. A second or so later, I was at the sink. I bent over the running water, turning my head to the side to rinse out my mouth. I gargled and spit at least twenty times. Then washed my hands just as much. The whole time, she stared at me. She probably thought I was some kind of freak. Let her. I wasn’t the one running around with a giant spear, slicing and dicing things. Thinking about it though, made me think about other things.

“How did you know I was here, anyway?”

“I’ve been following you.”

“What!”

She smirked. “When you stumbled into that yesterday, I was surprised. I’d been scouting that place for a day or so. They killed my partner. I wanted to take them out before they caught someone else off guard.”

Her partner?

Wait, didn’t one of them say something about a “Stalker”?

“What’s a Stalker?”

Her eyes opened in surprise. “Where did you hear that?”

I shrugged. “Those things were talking about it yesterday.”

Her eyes widen even further. “You understood them?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“And the one here, you could understand him too?”

I nodded again. “Yeah, he was speaking English."

She gave me a look.

“We have to go. Now!”

She grabbed my arm, pulling me from the bathroom. After seeing her throw that door, I wasn’t about to stop her. On my way through the waiting room, I managed to pull out my cell phone. I quickly dialed 911. I made it quick. Someone needed to know what happened here. I didn’t leave my name and hung up before Lucy---the Day Dispatcher---could ask me for any more details. I was actually kind of surprised she didn’t recognize my voice. As it was, I barely had time to shut off my phone before Dey’ya took it from me.

“This is dangerous,” she said, crushing it in her hand.

“What the fuck!” I snapped, watching as the crumbled remains of my phone dropped on the ground.

“You people have ingrained technology into your lives now. It's too integral. The Mutates figured it out quickly. They no doubt used it to track you down.”

“They’re that smart?”

“No, but they’re persistent.”

She left it at that, dragging me through the hole she made.

She finally let me go in the parking lot. I rubbed my wrist. Damn, she was strong.

She started toward the road, a girl on a mission. I watched for a second before rushing to catch up. I gently grabbed her wrist. “You can’t go walking around carrying that, you’ll get arrested.”

Where had she been hiding the spear when I saw her before?

She nodded and second later, it vanished. Ok, so it didn’t vanish. She flicked her wrist and it seemed to collapse. Folding smaller and smaller until it became a bracelet on her left wrist.

How was that even possible.

She saw me staring. “The Kaagan is an extension of our bodies.”

I nodded as if that explained everything.

“You have so many answers for me!”

“First, we need to find someplace to hide then you can ask your questions."

Fair enough.

I looked around, noticing a billboard near the road.

I smirked.

I had just the place.

It's every teenage boy’s dream to bring a gorgeous girl to a motel. In any other circumstance, I might be thrilled at the prospect. This, however, was not one of those. I smiled as the woman at the counter handed us our room key. She even winked. I found myself flushing. I thanked her and pulled Dey’ya out of the office to stop her from glaring. When I saw the sign on the road, I thought for sure it was a bad idea the moment I thought of it. Weren’t motels the first place people look? Then again, that was the movies and we were being chased by alien things from another planet.

Logic went out the window a long time ago.

“Why did she do that with her eye?”

“Do what?”

Dey’ya tried to mimic the woman’s wink but couldn’t.

I blushed. “She thought...she thought...”

I couldn’t say it.

Dey’ya caught on though. “Do you wish to mate with me?”

I nearly choked.

“What...I….”

I think I turned every color red imaginable.

It sure felt like I did.

She stared at me for a few moments before smiling.

“I’m sorry but The Goddess does not permit me to sleep with lower life forms."

Ouch.

Instead of turning more red, I think I lost all pigment at that moment.

She left it at that.

“Now, where is our room?”

I held up the key absently. She took it without question. I was dumbstruck for a moment. I don’t think I've ever met someone so direct before. Sure I was thinking about her sexually, it was hard not too but I would have never been so blunt about it. She was this mystery to me though. One I couldn’t stop thinking about these past few days and here she was, in the flesh. Then she turned me down cold and hard. I didn't even get a chance to try.

Depressing.

It took me a moment or two to recover.

When I finally did, Dey’ya was already at “our” room.

She was standing in the doorway when I got there. She was staring at what I could only guess was a dismal place. I looked beyond her. It wasn’t much to look at. There was a bed, a TV, a dresser. A small armchair sat near the window and there was an ice bucket near the bathroom door. It was pretty much what I was expecting from a roadside place like this.

“People sleep here?” she asked, stepping into the room.

“I know its not much...”

“It's too much” she interrupted. “To have such luxury...this is not right...”

Luxury?

What kind of place did she come from?

“You don’t have rooms like this back home?”

She shook her head. “Zeeka is a lush place. You would call it a jungle I believe. Places like this, I didn’t see anything like this until I reached the capital of Xernos as a girl.”

Zeeka? Xernos?

I had no idea what she was talking about.

I let her look around a bit first. Then walked into the room myself, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I suppose you can have the bed, I’ll take the chair. There’s a bathroom back there, you can shower first if you want.”

I was trying to be accommodating after all.

I still had hundreds of questions for her. I wanted her to feel like she was ok to tell me anything. First and foremost, I needed her to think that I was staying. It took us nearly two hours to walk from the clinic to this place. It would have been faster but we hid from the cops on the way then she kept stopping to make sure we were safe. While we were doing so, I started to think about my situation. I was only in it because I saw something I shouldn’t have. It was pretty clear what was going on. They killed her partner first---that’s what caused the “fire”---then they killed the cop. I’m guessing his death was unforeseen. Much like what happened to those people at the clinic and what would have happened to me.

I guess I was lucky she showed up when she did.

This was the end of it though.

I wanted to go home.

I needed to go home.

But first, though, I needed her to tell me what the hell I stumbled into.

She finally stopped looking around. “I’ve been on this small planet of yours for only a handful of days and already I feel like I’ve seen more than I thought I would.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed, finally settling into the chair. “I told you I would give you answers and I’ll try my best” She looked about. “You call this planet Earth, correct?”

I nodded. “Does it have a different name?”

She nodded. “We classified it as X2936, a No Zone.”

No Zone?

“What does that mean?”

“Primitive”.

Gee, thanks.

Though that made me wonder. “You’ve been here before?”

“Me personally, no. The Foundation sent scouts before though. They like to keep tabs on the No Zones, to check on them every few centuries. The last one was here over two of your centuries ago. They reported no progress. Your advancement is quite remarkable. I've never seen a No Zone progress so quickly”.

Yay us?

“And these people...”

“The Foundation, its our central government. The organization responsible for all our laws and order. Its composed of a large number of planets, the capitol of which is on Xernos. I’m from Zeeka. We’re not officially apart of the Foundation but we are awarded certain liberties because of The Goddess.”

There she goes, mentioning The Goddess again.

“This Goddess, that’s Tryn?”

She smiled. “Yes, the Holy of Holies.”

The way she said it surprised me. Before she’d been harsh and kinda cold but when she spoke of this Goddess, she spoke with a soft and devoted sounding voice. Clearly, religion was a big part of her society. It must be nice to believe in something so much to be that devote to it. I believed in God sure but I’m not sure I would go around calling myself His Servant.

“Did this Tryn send you to Earth?”

“No,” she said, her voice losing that softness. “We came seeking a fugitive. They committed a vile crime. As a Stalker, it's my job to hunt criminals. That we ended up here was mere coincidence. She could have gone anywhere.”

She?

“You’re looking for a woman then?”

“A princess, yes.”

Princess?

Did I just wander into a really bad sci-fi movie?

“I’m not sure I understand.”

She sighed, then took a moment before she spoke again: “I’ll try to explain it the best I can. You see, The Foundation is built around the Holy Goddesses. Six Divine Sisters of Great Strength and Power. The Goddesses rule through the people. To have a Goddess is to be Eternal. To Speak for One is the Greatest Gift of All Time."

Speak for one?

“What does that mean?”

“Every generation, the Goddesses choose new Mouths to Speak Through. There is a ceremony called the Ascension of Light, whereupon those deemed Worthy are brought together so that the Goddesses may choose a new Mouth for the next generation. The Mouths are usually of blood, the Rite passed from one daughter to the next. Most in The Foundation take this as an honor. One daughter is chosen to step forward and Speak for her Blood. On the planet Quel, there was a problem. There were, in fact, Five Worthy daughters. Each one as remarkable as the next. The Eldest---Jellia---was thought to be the most Worthy. Sadly the Goddess Aniqa did not believe so and chose her sister, Nalia---the second Daughter---as her Mouth. Jellia was enraged by this decision, stole the Goddess and fled the Ceremony".

“Wait, she stole the Goddess?”

Now I was more confused than ever!

Dey’ya nodded. “The Goddesses do not have a corporeal form of their own, that is why they chose a Mouth to speak for them. After being rejected, Jellia stormed the podium and snatched Aniqa from her resting altar. She fled the room before any in attendance could react. Stalkers were dispatched. We gave chase. She fled in this direction. I have good reason to believe that she came to Earth to hide.”

I nodded but I was still a little confused.

“I still don’t understand this about the Goddess?”

She paused and looked around. She went over to the dresser and came back with a pad of paper and pen. Apparently complimentary of the motel. She started drawing, turning the doodle to me a moment later. I saw a crudely drawn circle I think.

“The Goddess is bodiless. She is just a Heart. The Mouth takes that Heart into themselves and becomes the Goddess in flesh.”

She tapped the circle on her drawing, hoping her little diagram clarified things. Was that supposed to represent the Heart she spoke of? Did she mean they actually ate it or...something flashed in my mind for a quick second. An image of a glowing stone being placed on someone's chest. Almost as if...

I think I was finally understanding.

“Like a symbiote.”

She gave me a confused look.

“A life form using another life form to live,” I said, hoping to clarify.

I almost went to Star Trek and the Trill but I’m not sure that would have been any easier.

“In a way yes. Except The Mouth and the Heart are separate from one another. The Mouth lives their life until the Goddess calls upon them.”

What did that mean?

“The Goddess takes over?”

She shook her head. “No, the Mouth allows the Goddess to Speak through them. She controls her actions, speaks with her voice. Uses her body to do what she needs to do. Then returns back to the Silence of the Mind.”

Sounds like a takeover to me.

"And the Mouth allows this?”

Dey’ya nodded. “She cherishes it. It is Her Life to Share and Serve the Goddess.”

Still sounds crazy to me.

Of course, I didn’t tell her that.

A vision of me flying across the room like a discus scared the hell out of me.

“Dey’ya,” I said, hoping not to sound horrible. “That sounds like...”

“Dey,” she said with a smile. “You can call me Dey.”

“Dey,” I said, blushing.

"Yes, and I know what you’re thinking too. I assure you, the connection between the Goddess and the Mouth is not like that. Together they are powerful. They form a holy union. Galaxies bend to their will, civilizations could crumble at Their Word. It is why Jellia coveted such a power. She was always headstrong but no one ever thought she would try something so low.”

Sounds like a bitch to me.

“What happened? I mean after she ran away?”

“We chased her. My partner and I and Nalia.”

“Wait, her sister came too?”

Dey nodded. ‘All of us were trained together in the Academy. Nalia and I were honor bound to seek out the traitor and bring her to justice. We almost succeeded but Jel opened a Rift and went through it. We gave chase but...”

“But what?”

“When I came out of the Rift, I was the only one. Jel and her sister were both gone.”

“And your partner?”

She nodded. “He was called Nox. He was from Via. Our craft seats two. When we landed, we agreed to scout the area separately. My best guess is that he caught the Mutates by surprise."

Ok, that story explains how she got here and what she was doing here but it didn’t explain them.

“How did they get here?”

“My best guess, Jel created them and had them waiting for us?”

“That fast?”

“Rifts are strange things. You can enter one and not always come out in the same place or time that you entered.”

“You time travel!”

Now I was excited. I used to think that time travel was the coolest thing when I was younger. The idea of being able to travel backward or even forward in time. What kid didn’t dream of something like that? I used to watch everything time travel related---movies, TV---I even read a few books. My fascination with it became even more so after Mom’s death. The idea of being able to travel back in time and save a loved one, that had a lot of possibilities too.

“Time travel is an accidental after effect, it happens from time to time, especially with the firefight we were having. Her craft took quite a few hits before she went into the Rift. Its possible one of those hits damaged her stabilizer and she couldn’t compensate. She could have landed weeks or even months ahead of us, laying a trap would be easy”.

That was a scary thought.

“So now what happens?”

“I find her.”

“Just like that.”

She nodded. “Jel is on Earth. She does not belong here. She needs to be brought back home to face her crimes. The fact that she might become a Rogue Archon is even more dangerous.”

Archon?

There’s that word again. The Slime Head thing used it when it attacked me. He said he smelled It and accused me of having It. I thought it was crazy but now.

“What is that?”

“Archon?” she asked, I nodded. “Its what we call someone in possession of a Heart. The Mouth becomes the Archon when they take the Heart into their possession. It was a job meant for Nalia until Jel stole it from her.”

If Jel was the Archon, what did that have to do with me? And why did they think I was one?

Thinking about it made me start to fidget. I got up to clear my head, absently rubbing the gem hanging from my neck.

I felt a tingle in my fingertips than a warmth.

Then everything felt right.

I smiled.

And for just a slight moment, I could swear I heard someone whisper my name.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF