'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')

Chapter 10: Kate & Matias

“I can’t believe it,” she said, “you’ve been watching me all this time without my knowing?”

Matias nodded.

“It’s so…creepy,” she said.

“I appreciate how you must feel,” he replied, “but I could hardly walk up to you in the street and introduce myself. You’d have run a mile. And I’ve noticed you run very fast.”

“You’ve watched me run?” she asked.

“Once or twice,” he answered. “In fact, I felt as bad as you must have when you came second in the Commonwealth Games.”

“You watched me at the Games?” she asked, her vanity ever so slightly tickled at his interest. “If I hadn’t been tripped, I’d have taken the Gold.”

“I know,” he replied.

As her brain struggled with everything he’d told her, she stepped over to the window, drawn by the cold, clear beauty of the lunar landscape.

“Is that really the Moon?” she half-whispered.

“Yes,” replied Matias in his odd accent, “and if we were in another part of the Ship we would be looking out at the stars, but so much brighter and clearer than you have ever seen them.”

“No,” she said suddenly, “The answer’s no. Even if I accept your story - and I’m beginning to -  it doesn’t get away from the fact that you abducted me. Back home, we prefer to choose our partners ourselves. If you have one scrap of decency, you’ll let me go. Now.”

For a long moment he didn’t answer, then said:

“I can’t,” he answered.

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“I can’t let you go right now. The Ship is in the wrong place and we have to be very careful about how and when we transport you back. It exposes us to potential danger. But I will make you a promise - “

“Which is?” she interrupted.

“All of us - myself and my three fellow crew members - have agreed that we won’t force anyone to do anything they won’t consent to.”

“And you expect me - us - to believe that?”

“For the moment,” he said, with an edge to his voice she hadn’t heard before, “you have no choice.” Then his voice softened a little as he added: “Give me some time, Kate, please. It’s my hope you may come to like me.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” she said.

As the impact of his words sank in, Kate once again examined the room, looking for some means of escape. If the design of the window was anything to go by, there were two other entrances to the room: one opposite the bed, the other next to the bed on the wall facing the window. Both were little more than a line in the fabric of the wall, rectangular in shape with rounded corners.

Matias interrupted her survey.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

Now that he mentioned it she realised she wasn’t just hungry, she was starving. Her sense of time was completely disoriented and she had no idea when she had last eaten. She also needed a shower or at least a wash, since she was still in her running kit.

As if reading her mind, he added “And I expect you’d like a shower and change of clothes?”

She nodded. 

“Let me show you the rest of your living space.”

He got up, touched a pad next to the outline of the door alongside the bed and it slid back into the wall. 

“Come,” he said, extending his hand.

Pointedly ignoring his outstretched hand, she followed cautiously. The next room came as quite a surprise. Its construction was almost identical to the room they’d just left, only a little bigger. The surprise was what was on the walls: several fine art prints of paintings by her favourite artist, Monet. They appeared to be part of the wall itself, but when she looked closely she saw that they were displayed on screens.

“How did you know….” she began to ask, then stopped as she remembered what he had said previously. “You really do know stuff about me, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to leave you for a while,” he said. “There is a shower cubicle there - ” and he indicated the outline of another door, “ - and clothes in here,” he showed her a small closet with hanging clothes and shelves. “They are, of course, all your size.”

She turned away from him walking round the edges of the room and staring up at the ceiling.

“Where are they,” she demanded.

“Where are what?” he said.

“The cameras,” she replied. “So you can perv over me showering and changing.”

“No cameras, I promise. But the door will be locked, so there is no point trying to escape. You’d just be wasting your time,” he said, with that harder edge to his voice she’d heard before. “I’ll be back with food in just under an hour, alright?”

She nodded sullenly.

Matias stepped back into the first room and left by the other door. Before it slid back into place she was just able to glimpse a corridor surfaced in much the same material as her room.

My living space she thought. This is completely insane. But insane or not, she realised she did very much need to shower and change.

And a meal would be very welcome. Despite the company.

© Adriana Nicolas 2014