She seemed quite content with her work and proceeded as if she were conducting some kind of experiment rather than speaking with a real person.
“It was fine,” I said noncommittally, not wishing to speak about Trayem or else end up as a puddle on the floor.
“Was it painful?” Junic said, not even bothering to look at me and choosing to consult her clipboard instead.
“Not physically,” I said.
Junic ticked a box and nodded. If she had any interest in getting to know me or inquiring into the other type of pain I might have been referring to, she showed no sign of it.
“That’s good,” she said, clicking the end of her pen as she spoke.
“Was there enough lubrication? Any chafing or soreness?”
“No.”
“Out of ten, what would you give the sexual experience?”
How about an eleven? And then minus ten for this morning.
“About an eight,” I said without thought or feeling.
“Two eights in a row, huh?” Junic said absently. “You’re going to have to give me his cell number.”
She gave me a wink before turning to the second page and continued with her embarrassing questions. I answered them without hesitation in case she thought there were extra notes she needed to jot down. It was definitely not something I wanted to discuss more with her.
“All right,” Junic said, picking up the little device from a small table and passing it over my stomach.
It only took a moment and I stared at the ceiling, wondering what I was going to do when I arrived back at the Prize Pool. Shower, wash, and try not to think about that asshole ever again.
“Hm,” Junic said with a pinched frown.
“What is it? Problem with the machine?”
“No. Let me run the test again.”
She did and the frown grew even deeper as she peered at that device’s screen.
“What is it?” I said.
For the first time since I’d met her, Junic had the look of someone who didn’t know what they were doing. She was nothing if not professional. Seeing her in her current befuddled state made me feel a little concerned.
“Excuse me a moment,” she said, putting the device down on the side table and taking off to speak with an older man who had to be her boss.
She pointed in my direction, getting the attention of not only her boss but the other workers too.
This was a first.
They were usually so consumed with their own work they rarely, if ever, looked up.
I wondered idly if the scientists had been abducted and forced to work here too, and where they stayed if they had. Did they have quarters like the supervisor’s upstairs?
I sighed and yawned, exhausted after the night’s vigorous activities. I glanced over at the handheld device Junic had deposited on the side table.
There was a blinking bar across the middle.
The screen was a dull green, the lettering darker. The device was perched on a stack of other devices and lay on its side.
I turned my head to match its perspective, and as I did, the translator chip buried in my arm translated the words.
The letters transformed into English letters from their original alien language and yet, the words made no sense to me.
It was a single word, eight letters long, and they flashed intermittently.
The blood drained from my face.
POSITIVE, it blinked.
POSITIVE.
Not negative.
POSITIVE.
That meant…
No.
It couldn’t mean…
But it did.
POSITIVE.
I was pregnant.
“Excuse me,” a deep voice said.
A hand drifted toward mine and shook it.
“I’m Dr. Liok. I have some very exciting news…”
My eyes zigzagged up to the doctor’s face. He peered at me through his wide spectacles. He had hard outer shell-like skin and above his top lip was a ridge of dimples which might have passed as a moustache in his species.
His mouth moved but once again, the words made no sense.
“You’re pregnant.”
It didn’t matter whether I read it or he said it to me directly. It still didn’t make sense.
I couldn’t be pregnant. We’d been so careful. Trayem always pulled out at the last second…
Except, last night, we’d been so engrossed in our activities that he hadn’t pulled out…
Had he?
Yes, I thought. He had.
But I knew deep in my gut he hadn’t. And I hadn’t stopped it from happening either.
We were so involved with each other, so engaged in our mutual feelings of pleasure I hadn’t even noticed.
Neither had he.
“We’d like to offer you our sincerest congratulations,” Dr. Liok said. “It’s not every day we see a pregnancy.”
The smiles of the surrounding scientists were warm and welcoming.
I didn’t want their smiles or their warmth. Not now, not when it was too late.
“I… I have to go to the Prize Pool,” I said. “Lily… She… I need to speak with her…”
She would know what to do.
I struggled to sit up in the oversized chair.
The doctor pressed a hand to my chest and held me down.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you leave. Not right now. First, we must check the baby’s health.”
I knocked his hands aside but his arms were surprisingly steadfast.
“I can’t be here. I can’t…”
I didn’t have the words because I didn’t know what I was meant to say. I only knew I wanted to get out of there. Being in the Prize Pool wouldn’t have helped much either but at least Lily was there. As cold and distant as she was, she had been here a lot longer than me and she would know what to do in such a situation as this.
“You need to be careful,” Dr. Liok said in a sterile tone of voice I didn’t care for. “You’re carrying very valuable cargo.”
Cargo?
Was that what I had become? A cargo carrier? Couldn’t they see I was my own person?
“I need to get out of here,” I said. “I have to speak to—”
I felt a sharp stab in my arm
