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Resistance

It was the day before I was to meet with Argus and head to the party. Naturally, I was busy working.

I do set my own hours, that’s the best thing about owning your own business, but this also meant that when a sudden opportunity presents itself, even if it’s my day off, I must seize it.

In this case, a series of coincidences presented itself that were too tempting to pass up. First, I received word that the Regulus Prime Planetary Museum was holding a temporary exhibit on human culture, history, and technology. Partly an expression of their fascination of their new subjects and partially an expression of domination, claiming and hauling treasures and trinkets of ranging value. Naturally, of course, they had a section on the development of the micro-computer and wanted samples. The museum was patronized by the royal family and they certainly had more than enough money to throw around.

Next I got an email from a client, a human. I didn’t think much of it at first, he was an older fellow with an old computer, that’s how he described himself; but after talking him through taking a picture of it and sending it to me (No small feat), I gazed upon an Amiga 4000T. I told him I couldn’t help him with his computer problems, but I’d sell him a newer exchange unit for a fair price and he agreed.

Perhaps this all sounds a little contrived. Perhaps if I hadn’t been blinded by the all-mighty dollar, I might have agreed. Perhaps, I should have felt a little skeptical when I turned up at the address, a rough brick apartment building in a fairly run-down part of town with a nearly new computer in tow while parking my mid-range sedan on the side of the road, and considered that this might have been a bad idea.

But hey, there was money to be made, and this part of town was really only dangerous if you were a rich, naive alien. I’d be fine.

I tapped the buzzer and an old man’s voice whispered through the speaker.

“It’s me, Nate. The computer guy,” I replied.

BUZZ.

Pushing the door open, I went in, entered the elevator and nudged the button for floor 3. After an interminably long wait, the doors cracked open slightly, getting jammed and forcing me to pry them open before escaping.

The hall was grimy, with peeling wallpaper and tattered carpet, both likely pre-invasion. I followed the doors...311...309...307...305…

And there it was: 303. The white door was already cracked open. Peering in, I called out.

“Hello? It’s me, Nate!”

No reply.

Hesitantly, perhaps finally realizing that these was something wrong but unwilling to make the sensible decision, I pushed the door open, creeping inside.

The apartment was a mess. Not really dirty, at least, comparative to the building, but there were old receipts scattered all about the floor and a pile of clothing was erected in front of the bathroom door. Whoever lived here was smart enough at least to make sure his mess didn’t smell, I didn’t see any rotten food.

“Hello? Mr. Andersen?”

It was a bust. A prank and a damned boring one at that. It must have been.

“I’ve got the...”

My throat tightened as a heavy arm wrapped around it. I dropped the computer, sending it bouncing off my foot. I screamed in pain.

“Shut up!” My assailant growled. Human. Male. His grip tightened, nearly cutting off my air supply but my choked yells still managed to escape, “Just let this happen...”

I swung my arm back in a vain attempt to hit him, but was soon grabbed with his spare hand. I flailed to and fro, trying to escape and failing, but succeeding in loosening his grip.

“Ssssh,” a second whisper came from the right, following by a sharp pain in my arm. A few seconds later and I felt the grip on my throat loosening along with everything else. My head began to float and I tried to spin around to get the face of my attacker, but I stopped halfway upon seeing a smiling brown Vulpeculan, tossing away a syringe. He looked...familiar...but I couldn’t remember from where…I couldn’t remember much right then.

I took a step toward him, tripping over the computer tower and sending myself sprawling forward. The Vulpeculan caught me in his arms, holding me against his chest. His nose gently brushed against my ear as he whispered.

“It’s okay, Nate. We’re not going to hurt you. Just go to sleep…go to sleep…go to sleep...”

* * * * * * *

“I think he’s awake.”

I wasn’t, but now I was and had enough sense to keep my eyes shut and pretend otherwise.

“Naw. He’s sound asleep,” the voice was Human and I recognized it. The one who strangled me earlier.

Carefully, I cracked my eyelids open and was greeted by a pair of amber eyes staring right at me from a brown-furred face. His muzzle was white with a nasty scar on it. I knew who it was right away.

“Oh no...” the Vulpeculan whispered with a knowing smile, “He’s awake.”

“Sure looks asleep to me.”

“Hm,” the Vulpeculan said, peering to the side, “Perhaps you’re right...”

Without warning, he turned and lunged his face towards mine, pressing his wet nose and lips against mine. My eyes flew open and I breathed in a mouthful of his musk as he forced his tongue past my lips. I tried to resist, but my arms were tied to the chair. I couldn’t scream, I could only make a muffled guttural noise as he wrestled with my mouth. Eventually, he pulled back, staring lustfully into my eyes and exposing his teeth in a smile.

“Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty,” he growled, slapping at my crotch with his paw. Gently, he nuzzled at my nose and whispered huskily, “We can always continue if you want.”

“W-what about Ch...” I cut myself off, immediately regretting my question.

“Don’t worry about her. We have an undestanding...at least with you; she thought you and I would be cute together.”

“No! I mean…”

“Don’t fight it,” he whispered, rubbing his paws at the side of my face, “Just give in...”

I closed my eyes.

“Hah! He fell for it!”

I opened my eyes to see the Vulpeculan pull back, mouth wide open in laughter as he grabbed a can of beer from a nearby table and took a swig. A burly Human in a black hoodie with a big, brown beard came into view and they high-fived.

“Guess I owe you a beer,” the human snorted, cracking open a beer can with a hiss and slurping loudly, “Still, uh, not exactly sure why you were so eager to do this. I mean, you are...”

“Straight, yes, but I was in prison for some time in Vulpeculae, so...” his ears flattened and he leered in my direction, “Besides, he got stiff when I measured him...”

“What the hell!?” I shouted, which was a mistake as my head started swimming once again from the drugs.

“...And Char found out and we made a bet as to whether he was a closet-case or not. She insisted he wasn’t, but I...” he stopped, frowning, “Well, it looks like I won one bet and lost the other.”

“You’re one fucking weird Fox.”

“Damn straight.”

There was a loud crash and I jumped (Or would have if I wasn’t tied down), turning to the source. Neither the Vulpeculan nor the Human reacted aside from the latter groaning. The heavy smell of cheap cigars started seeping into the apartment and a quick tap-tap-tap of heels grew closer and closer…

Until a woman rounded the corner. First thing I noticed was the nasty claw scars on her face, running down from her forehead to across her eyelid and ending in the middle of her cheek. She looked to be in her thirties and by the way she carried herself, former military and not the Alien military brigades. Clenching her cigar in her lips, she flung her great, brown raincoat off and let it fall to the ground.

“This the tech?” she growled out of the corner of her mouth, not letting her cigar go for a second.

“Yeah,” the bearded man nodded.

“Did Rey and him fuck?”

“No. He freaked out.”

She took a series of puffs from the cigar, nodding quickly before taking it out and exhaling. Grimacing she muttered towards Rey, the Vulpeculan (His code-name I guess. I’ve forgotten his real one.), “Guess I owe you a beer.”

“I’ll add it onto your loan, Captain.”

“Alright, who the hell are you people and what do you want!?”

There was absolute silence after I demanded an answer. A man who looked like a bear, a woman who looked like she picked a fight with a lion and won, and a six foot tall Fox stared at me with deadpan stares that almost managed to make me feel like I did something wrong and not them. The situation was so absurd, I almost felt like laughing, but then things have always been a little absurd since the invasion.

Without breaking the silence, the woman grabbed a chair and planted it in front of me. She took a seat shortly after, puffing her cigar and blowing smoke in my face.

Coughing as I breathed in the acrid smoke, I repeated my demands, “What do you want!?”

“We want you to go to a party,” she said, rolling the stogie back and forth across her thumb casually, “You know which one and we know you’re on the guest list.”

“The Duke’s? How did you...”

“We didn’t. Now we do.”

“What the...”

Rey stepped forward, muzzle tilted proudly, “You can blame this one on me and Char. We looked over your order, looked on the calendar and we did the math. I reported it to the Captain and she said that one of our agents confirmed rumors that a human was invited, so we felt the need to invite you to a briefing,” he lowered his gaze and scratched at the scar on his muzzle sheepishly, “Sorry. Nothing personal.”

“Back to the point,” she broke in, tapping the ashes off her cigar, “We want you to go to the party, record everything you hear and report everything you see. Don’t take any unnecessary risks; if you can get in bed with the Duke or another Noble...”

“I’m not...”

She ignored me, “...Then ask some discrete questions. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb, some of them won’t trust you, but if you let one of them fuck you, they’ll open up,” she paused, “And yes, we know you are not inclined that way, thanks to Rey, that’s why I’m not ordering you to do it, but if one of them approaches you, you would be helping the effort greatly if you let them.”

“That’s...”

Tapping her finger on her claw marks, she continued slowly with a grave tone, “Prince Litho gave me this. He led a contingent during the final occupation. He tore off my uniform, shoved me against a wall and took me. When he was finished, he gave me this to remember him by,” she paused, but showed no sorrow or pain, as if to get the point across, “Nate, if it meant having a chance to gain an advantage over the occupation or kill him, I would let him do it all over again as many times as it took.”

There was nothing I could say to that. I didn’t know what to feel, even; I had never met someone who had been through so much and still had such a hardness. My city mostly escaped both the orbital bombardment and the ground invasion, being not a primary target, but there were plenty of people who moved here that were and none of them matched the Captain’s determination. To say it was intimidating would be an understatement.

“But I know you’re a tech, not a soldier. Consider it a secondary objective,” she took puff and held the smoke in before letting it escape slowly, “Your primary objective is to attend the party and enjoy yourself.”

“O-okay, so I’ll just go there and...have fun?”

“Correct. And you’ll be wearing this.”

There was a sting in my cheek and I turned to find Rey retracting his paw, “What the hell?”

The Vulpeculan held out a mirror in front of my face and pointed a claw at a small, brown mole on my cheek that I did not have before.

“The latest in Sirian micro-technology,” the human man announced, “Three days worth of recording time and virtually undetectable. All the Alien spies use them and there’s no real countermeasure yet.”

“I don’t have a mole there,” I said, clearing my throat, “I think the Sirian who invited me has been paying attention to me, so to speak; he might notice.”

“Trust me, he won’t,” Rey said, “All of us, Sirians, Lupiads, Vulpeculans, we all rely on scent more than sight. He won’t notice a tiny mole on your cheek, and even if he does, is it really strange for you to grow one?”

“If it’s so commonly used by them...”

“It’s commonly used by an Alien covered in fur. It’s rarely hidden in plain sight like this.”

“Then hide it on the top of my head!”

Rey put down the mirror and sauntered up to me. Kneeling over he rubbed the side of his face against my cheek and nuzzled at my ear. Slowly, he whispered, “It’s easier to record when it’s here.

With that, he pulled away and took his place next to the Captain. His scent still left its traces in my nostrils.

“Okay, so let me just get this straight, you drugged me, tied me up, and now want me to commit treason...”

“It’s not treason,” the man said, “They stole our planet.”

“Tell that to them if I get caught!” I shouted, “So let me ask you, what’s stopping me from going to them?”

“Nothing,” the Captain said, finally stubbing out her cigar on the arm of her chair, “You don’t know my name, you don’t know Bear’s name,” she motioned towards the bearded man, “And they’ll find nothing if they investigate Rey, who will proceed to claim that you have a grudge against him, a public figure, for having sex with his ex-girlfriend. You will gain nothing and only make a fool of yourself, which will certainly harm your business, won’t it?”

She had a point, but she was forgetting something important…

“And we haven’t activated the recording device yet,” Rey shot in, “So don’t even think about it.”

“Alright, I get the point,” I sighed, shaking my head. They got me, there was nothing that I could do now, “Can you at least tell me who you are? I know you’re not the Human Front,” I motioned with my head towards Rey, “And I doubt you’re Earth Confederation either. So, who are you?”

The Captain motioned to Bear, who walked towards me and began untying the ropes. She shrugged and answered, “Who says we’re not one of them? Perhaps we’re all of them, or none.”

“Are you going to tell me or not?”

“No,” she said. The ropes came loose and I stood up, shaking a little from the drugs, “For your sake and ours, if your cover is blown it is better that you do not know.”

“Fine.”

“Bear, walk him outside.”

Bear put his hand on my shoulder and motioned towards the door. Not seeing any point to staying, I left with him trailing behind slowly. I didn’t bother picking up the remains of the computer I brought, after dropping it like that, chances are something was broken and I didn’t care to try and find out. I left it on the ground for them to clean it up.

We soon found ourselves in the elevator and he pressed the button for the ground floor. The room came to life and churned downwards.

“So, Bear, you all ex-military?”

“I am.”

“Before or after the invasion?”

“After.”

“Which Legion?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” The elevator doors opened with a ding. I thought to ask him what he meant, but I knew about the rumors, of humans who served in the Alien military having their memories altered after their service ended to prevent leaking secrets and to help adjust them to civilian life; so I was able to make a quick guess and leave, not wanting to press him further.

This was not a very productive week. I had just wasted a whole day one a phony job, bought an expensive suit, was about to engage in espionage at a party, and worst of all, I knew that I still wanted to do all this. I wanted to go to the party, I didn’t care for the spying, but I wanted to make contacts and make more money. I would be the first human invited to the Duke’s party, the first that was invited unchained that is, and this was a great opportunity for me.

A great opportunity to get killed too. No, this was a dumb idea. I could always tell Argus that I was sick and couldn’t make it. He’d understand; probably even pass out my number to the people there and I wouldn’t have to go. The people I just met, they didn’t even threaten me if I bailed on them, so I could be okay.

And even if I didn’t make any new money, I still had a good job, a good apartment, and a decent car that was fully paid off and I could afford to keep living as I was now. Business was not going to slow down and the money would keep coming in.

Then I noticed something as I exited the apartment, or rather, I noticed nothing. My car was gone.

Fuck.