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“Buttercup,” I repeated. It soothed me to rattle off the words I knew. They were completely alien to me, and yet I knew what they were. It was always a strange sensation, and one I never grew tired of. “A herbaceous plant with bright yellow cup-shaped flowers, common in grassland and as a garde-”

The older man slammed his hand against the barrier. “Enough of that! You’re there to look cute, not rattle off like a computer.” He smiled at me but the expression was so unlike Higgens. How was that possible? Was that a human thing? “Come on now, why don’t you do your thing.”

“Do… my thing?”

“Yeah. Make your form go all watery then be someone.” His eyes widened and he looked quite excited. “Why not take a crack as me?”

“You… you want me to take your form?”

“Yeah. That’d be grand.”

“I need your DNA.”

“What?”

“Humans are incredibly complex creatures. I cannot just shift into you on sight. I either need to read your full medical work up, or have a touch of DNA.”

“You think I am some sort of idiot?” He snarled, face going red. I hadn’t known that humans could change color to convey emotion. How… unattractive.

“I do not know enough about you to come to any sort of conclusion about your intelligence.”

He snarled and said several words that I did not understand the meaning of. Maybe something about fecal matter and structures used to hold back water?

However, I was distracted in the middle of his rant by one of the panels on the wall wiggling slightly. My mind automatically went through all the possible options it could be and whether it would be dangerous to me or not.

Then, the small square of metal came loose, only to be caught just before it hit the floor by Higgens!

He had come for me!

His kind eyes moved from me to the man who was trapping me. He needed to close his distance.

Right! A distraction.

“Wait!” I blurted, holding both hands up in what I hoped was a normal-human gesture. “Let me show you what forms I can take!”

That seemed to cool the man and his pallor began to return to normal. “By all means, entertain me.”

I closed my eyes to concentrate. I had no idea how humans managed to focus with their color intensive vision. Instead of finding things by heat emissions or vibration, they seemed highly dependent on their strange, mirrored view of the world.

It took several moments, but I felt my body relax, melting into a listless sort of slumber as I melted down to the floor. I was sure it no doubt looked horrifying to them, but it was completely painless. Even a bit of a relief to not have to hold a form so alien to my own.

But I couldn’t stay that way for long. I called up the image of Higgens in my head. The strong set of his jaw. The kind way his hazel eyes would regard me. The way his thin, long fingers would work at one task or another.

I felt the change sweep over me and then it was done. When I opened my eyes again, I was looking at my captor on a much more eye to eye level.

“I’ll be. That’s uncanny, I tell you. Who else can you…”

He never finished that sentence, because Higgens came up behind him, bringing a metal rod down on the older man’s head. I let out a shocked shout, but my rescuer pressed his fingers to his lip. What was that supposed to mean?

Oh! Probably to be quiet.

I complied and Higgens crossed over to some sort of panel. He pressed a few buttons and the shielding that was holding me in a small square pen dropped.

Not for the first time since I arrived, I was flooded with emotions. These systems that were still so new to me overwhelmed the logic of my mind, and the next thing I knew, I was rushing forward to throw my arms around Higgens.

Something was leaking from my eyes, but I didn’t care.

He had come for me.

My friend had come for me.

What more could I ask?

8

Unlikely Allies

I stood there, frozen to the spot as Mimi pressed my own body to me. It would have been a whole lot more awkward if I couldn’t feel the gratitude rolling off of my friend in waves.

“Where’d you learn to do this?” I asked, returning her hug with all the comfort I had within me.

“On the net.” Slowly she shifted back into the form I knew. We shared a tender smile and I gently raised a hand to wipe her tears away.

She leaned her face into my palm, and I had never been so tempted to kiss someone in my entire life.

And then the alarms went off.

“What is that?” She cried, clapping her hands over her ears.

“Crap! They must have been linked to Giomatti’s vital signs. Come on, we gotta go!”

I grabbed her wrist and took off, sprinting out of the door before it was sealed in lock-down. If the ship was remotely set up according to protocol, I had three minutes to get us off of the ship and to safety.

“Where are we going?” I heard Mimi cry as I dragged her along. I was pretty sure that she had never run in this form, so I was sure she wasn’t having the best time, but I couldn’t let her slow down.

“There are escape shuttles for the crew in case of emergency. If I can get one, we can get out of here before he wakes up or anyone else tries to take you back.”

“What of the others who were with him? They also had the blasters, as I believe you call him.”

“That was probably his security, Masis and Umbusala. We definitely do not want to run into them.”

“But if these alarms are going off, aren’t the escape routes the first thing they will check?”

“Let’s hope not.”

We sprinted all out, my heart beating out of my chest all the way down the hall. We turned this way, then that, bursting through doors. Not for the first time, I found myself grateful we ran on a skeleton crew.

And then it was there. The door leading to the hangar bay. Of course, it was on the same level of the bridge, considering essential personnel were that much less expendable than us peons.

“There it is! That’s the door!”

I could see that the panel was still lit up blue, which meant it was still accessible. We had seconds, at most.

Rushing through it, I slammed in the code. As soon as the slightest of cracks opened, I forced my way through, yanking Mimi with me.

Only to come face to face with Gonzales’ gun.

“So, this is why you were asking all those questions.” She murmured, eyeing the shifter behind me.

“You have to understand.” I said, completely breathless as I held up my hands in a symbol of surrender. “She just wants to go home. She doesn’t deserve to be locked up in some lab on earth, lightyears away from anyone like her.”

The woman stood there, impassive. “And you really think you can do this on your own?”

“He is not alone!” Mimi said resolutely. “He has me.”

“And you got yourself captured.” With a roll of her eyes, the engineer dropped her gun and offered her hand. “Come on. You’re going to need me if you want to get one of these hunk of junks outta here.”

“Wait, you’re helping me?”

“Of course. You found alien life. If you think I’m going to be on the wrong side of history for that, you’d dead wrong. Now come on, we’ve been prepping for this ever since your girlie got captured a couple of hours ago.”

“We?” I echoed.

She didn’t answer and I followed her up the gangway of a ship. It was all a little surreal as we rushed toward the cockpit, the door closing behind us.

We were getting away!

We were escaping!

As elated as I was, I stopped short when I realized we were not alone in the cockpit. Ciangi and Bahn already were seated in the copilot and navigator seats, strapped in.

“You guys are coming to?” I asked, voice cracking.

“Yeah. I gotta pick your head more about that scanner idea. Can’t do that if you’re dead.”

“And if you think I’m passing up on the opportunity to study a willing subject that also just so happens to be a shapeshifter, you’re more insane than the earth government is going to try to make you seem in their smear campaign.”