“And you turned out to be a real firecracker, didn’t you, Maddy?” Quus said, fanning himself with his cue cards. “I don’t know about you guys at home, but I sure cuddled up close to my wife that night!”
On screen, I moaned and groaned—Too noisy, girl! Get on with it!—as he pumped me harder.
Chax looked good—he looked really good. He had the body and confidence for these kinds of movies.
Me on the other hand…
Oh, dear. That was a bad angle. My ass looked huge and for a moment, I wished they’d told me they were going to film me. My first porno movie and it broke the viewership ranking of every homemade Earth porno movie ever made.
I could at least feel a little proud of that, couldn’t I?
No, not really. We’d been coerced. We’d been put together in that room because they expected us to have sex.
That’s why I was wearing the negligee when I awoke, why he was half-naked.
They organized for this to happen.
Suddenly, the memory of the event turned sour in my mouth and it didn’t feel so special anymore—not least because fifteen billion alien creatures had also shared it.
This was surreal. Bizarre. Crazy.
I must be in a nightmare. This couldn’t be happening. I’d just had the best sex of my life. Maybe Chax had fucked me into a coma and I was still there.
That had to be it. There was no way this could be real.
“And now we very much look forward to watching you on the next part of your journey together,” Quus said. “I hope it’s every bit as spicy. Tell me, how does it feel to be live on intergalactic Changeling television?”
I just stared at the hologram and my eyes flickered to the creatures watching on the huge wall screens.
“Uh, strange,” I said.
The crowd burst into laughter.
“Strange, she said!” Quus said. “She could have felt bewildered. She could have felt excited or terrified… but instead, she tells us she feels strange! I think we’re going to need to keep a close eye on you, aren’t we, Maddy?”
He leered at me.
We were now famous. Mega-famous. And it suddenly occurred to me that with fame came power. Maybe we could use it to our advantage.
I affixed a grin to my face.
“I’m really excited to be here!” I said, taking a step forward.
Chax glanced at me and shook his head in warning.
“What are you doing?” he hissed out the corner of his mouth.
He tried to grab my hand but I’d already raised them to address our adoring crowd.
“I appreciate you guys and your support!” I said. “But what we’d really like is to be let out of here so we can go home.”
Quus glared at me. His eyes flickered over to Chax and then back to me again. His smile faltered and then grew wider on his face.
“Of course!” he said. “And that’s just what you’ll be doing once you’re out of that stuffy old room and traversing the landscape of ancient Grimaldon!”
The crowd roared. Chax grabbed my hand and pulled me back.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“I’m trying to get us out of here!” I said.
“They’re not going to let us go!” he said. “Not ever! Don’t you get it? These are Changelings. They have no sense of mercy, no sense of decency. Not a single shred in any of them!”
There was a flash of something in his face. A flash of horror, of desperation. He knew a lot more about these creatures than he was letting on.
“Play along if you want to live,” he said. “And if we’re very, very lucky, we might just survive.”
I gulped. Survive?
What sort of show was this?
He raised a hand to the crowd and smiled. I hesitated, feeling sick to my stomach at his warning. Then I followed suit and shared in the wave.
“On the tabletop in front of you, you’ll find your equipment for the journey ahead,” Quus said. “These items are what you’ll take with you. Where, you ask? To your shuttlecraft!”
The image on the screen shifted and displayed a small spaceship. I’d never seen a real one before but I’d seen plenty in science fiction movies. It was larger than a private plane, but not by much. It had a shorter wingspan and the engines were located in the belly of the ship and not on the wings. It was perched on a flat field with a raised slope around it.
“Reach the shuttlecraft and you’re free!” Quus said. “But you’ll have to be quick! You have only twenty-four hours to reach it. After that, you’ll be disqualified from the show.”
Disqualified from the show? Didn’t that mean we’d get to go home?
No. In this topsy turvy world, “disqualified” had a very different meaning…
“But don’t forget,” Quus said. “You won’t be alone out there. We’ve dispatched some of our finest trackers to hunt you down. So, you won’t only be trying to escape, you’ll be fighting to escape with your lives! Are you ready? Are you steady?”
The crowd was going nuts. Thousands of them, all with my or Chax’s appearance, screaming and waving their placards in the air.
“No, wait!” I said.
“And away you go!” Quus said.
The lights flicked off. The roaring crowd and holographic presenter faded away and disappeared in an instant. For a moment, we were left in total darkness.
And then a finger of light spilled from a new doorway. It crept open, spilling the morning of a new and alien world into the room.
I blinked against the sudden bright light. I blocked it with my hand over my eyes. Beyond was a cloudy sky and trees waving in the wind.
Chax was already stripping off and slipping on the suit on the table. It was tight and clung to his muscular frame. He picked up the electronic device and attached it to a special hook at his side.
I was in a daze.
“I… I don’t understand what’s happening,” I said.
“It’s the Changelings,” Chax said. “This is what they do.
