Codeless

It was like riding a cloud of light across a sea of stars. A myriad of glittering points of light, all out in the darkness surrounding her bed of light. Deep below her, or was it far away, was the spinning blue-green marble of Earth. She drifted, a satellite of the place she called home. Held in place by the will of gravity.

Jade gave a soft moan as they injected her with something. A sedative maybe? It made her feel light, she found herself beginning to drift. She didn't have the strength to fight the feeling and slipped into blackness.

She bid gravity goodbye and sank back into the soft sands of the beach, warm sun above, burning hot, almost uncomfortable, the light searing into her. She turned her face away from the light, too heavy to move any more.

Across the leaf litter on the ground, she could see the vines coming closer, hear the insects coming for her. She tried to get up to move, only to find she was already caught. The insects, buzzing and chittering came closer. They began to swarm over her, stinging and biting at her. She screamed.

Jade screamed as the blade dug into her skin. She screamed as they did the procedure. She screamed as they poked around inside her confused. She screamed as they put her back together again.

The monster crawled away, with a lopsided gait. Having finished, slowly eviscerating her it had removed it claws and stopped to look at her curiously, licking the blood off.

She didn't like the way it looked. Cold calculating eyes. All eight of them. Watching her as she lay helpless in its web. A second, unnoticed till then, spider crawled over her, pausing on her chest. It chittered to the one behind it. The larger one chittered back. The little spider sank it's fangs into her neck. She screamed.

A silent scream tore at Jade's throat, almost raw from use. She tried to sit up, to brush the nightmare off, but found herself tied down. Bound spread-eagle on a table. A multi-limbed monster stepped back, an all too human looking hypodermic needle awkwardly held in it's fingers.

"What do you want?" She whispered, unable to speak louder.

"You are empty." The smaller one said, proffering a bottle of water. Jade turned away. "It drinks. It talks." It said again. Jade tried to move her arm to push the bottle away, the little straw protruding out of it felt too close to her face. Anything could be in there.

Her arm didn't move.

Well, it moved, but it was firmly fastened in place. Panic set in, flashbacks of a darkened room came across her vision and she franticly strained against the bonds till she fell back against the table and its thin soft surface.

"Now it drinks." The smaller one said, the larger one still silent and observing on the other side of the room, a wickedly sharp looking multi-bladed tool on one three fingered hand. Jade resigned herself to the treatment. Besides, if I'm bad, then he'd hurt me more She said, assuming that if she played along then maybe theymight let her up.

The liquid was refreshing and she felt some of her voice returning to her. Reluctantly she wondered if it was because they liked hearing her scream.

"You. Empty. Why?" The larget one said, gesturing to her abdomen.

"Empty?" Jade asked, straing to look down her body, and for the first time noticing she was naked. A new pink scar was stitched up over her old one. "You cut me open!" She yelped, trying once again to struggle free.

"We harvest. For new code." The smaller one explained, it's language skills much better than the larger one.

"Code?” Jade queried.

"Life code, yes?" The creature nodded beatifically. "We have Ancient’s seed from those like you. Both species. Full code! Need more samples for code."

"You. Empty. No code. No growing. Why?" The larger one poked at her and Jade flinched away.

"I... I..." she stammered, thinking what the creatures meant. Then it dawned on her and her throat tightened into a sob.

"Explain empty." The larger one demanded. "Where code?" It tapped at some buttons and scans appeared. Jade recognised the other female crew members readouts. He pointed at them in turn. "Code. All have. Not you. Why?"

"Are you third type of code? Our experiments fail. We need working code. Are you secret third code?" The smaller one said.

"I dont have a womb... I have no eggs... I can't..." She trailed off, how could they understand.

"No live code?" The smaller one looked up and chittered in it's own language to the bigger one. It made a strange facial gesture, a frown if she had to guess.

"No. It was all taken from me. To save me. My... my code would have killed me." She couldn't think of any other way to explain it. How do you explain that cancer had taken your future away? That it had stolen that which makes you a woman.

"We talk. We return. Other experiments then." The smaller one said. It placed the water bottle down just out of reach and left after the larger one.

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