Page 1 of His Human to Chase

A12-22

“A12-22, your presence is required in the labs on level one.” The announcement blares from the speakers all around the stadium for the third time in the last twenty minutes.

I think about ignoring it again, but it has to be something important if they’re calling me down to the lab for the second time in just a few days. The first time my name was called through the speakers, one of the Hands, the aliens responsible for saving the remnants of humanity, had me get on a treadmill and work up a sweat before swabbing sweat from my face, neck, and armpits. I asked questions, but they were mostly ignored. The only thing I really figured out was that they were working with my pheromones for some reason.

I force myself from my comfortable room and make my way down the few flights of stairs to the bottom floor of the baseball stadium. Most of the time, I stay in Unit A12, where all the women being sent to the new planet are housed. The rest of the stadium has become a little hostile since rationing has gone into effect. Most of the other women don’t bother us, but some can get ugly. So, unit A12 and all of us in it are largely ignored. The only time I leave the unit is to get food, visit the gym, or go to the lab on the bottom floor to be experimented on by the Hands.

The aliens that saved Earth from completely collapsing call themselves the Hands of the Creator, but we all call them Hands. They look mostly human, but it’s pretty obvious it’s not what they normally look like. The humanness of them looks like a mask or a projection of a human. It feels like they’re trying to look more like us, so we’ll trust them more. I don’t know how well it’s working out for them since they still give me and everyone I ask the heebie-jeebies. It doesn’t help that we have absolutely no idea why they came to save us.

Well, almost no idea. They want some of us to go to another planet to breed with the inhabitants, but that still doesn’t explain what they get out of it.

“Thank you for coming, A12-22.” The same Hand who greeted me the other day opens the door to the lab, and I’m handed a sports bra and running shorts to change into. None of the Hands ever tell us names to call them. They all just go by the Hands of the Creator, which is odd, to say the least. “Change, and we’ll proceed.”

“Am I running again?” I ask as I walk to the small changing room in the corner of the room and start stripping. There’s no point in arguing or asking why I’m having to do this. I won’t get any answers, and worst case scenario, she stops talking to me completely, and it’s an awkward few hours of labs and experiments.

“That is the first task, yes,” the Hand answers as she starts clicking on a keyboard.

“We also need to see if you are just as responsive to the pheromones of the male creature we think you will be most compatible with.”

“What?”

All of my movements stop as I try to process what she’s just said. They need to see if I’m responsive to an alien man’s pheromones? No, just as responsive. Does that mean he’s responsive to mine? What does that mean in the sense of me being sent to the new planet?

As far as I know, I’m A12-22, which means they’re not sending me to the new world until the twenty-second month. One a month was the deal they made with us when they first started sending women to the new planet. I’m fine with that because it means almost two years until I’m meant to leave Earth.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” the Hand murmurs more to herself than to me.

There’s a click of the lab door opening, and a different Hand comes walking in. The Hand who has worked as our doctor since we were herded into the stadium doesn’t acknowledge me at all as he begins talking with the lab tech.

“I was sent to see to this human’s labs.” The doctor’s voice sounds more tense than normal.

I’ve seen him every month since I’ve been at the stadium, which means he’s probably the Hand I’ve interacted with the most, and that makes him the closest thing to an ally I have right now. I hope maybe he’ll offer me some answers since the other Hand just told me something she wasn’t supposed to, which only freaked me out more.

I pull the curtain back once I’m dressed in the workout gear and make my way over to the treadmill that they’ll probably have me get on. “Should I start?” I turn to ask the doctor, but he’s in some sort of weird staring competition with the other Hand. Both of them look so intently at each other that I can’t tell if they’re about to fight or not. I’ve never seen any of the Hands have weird bouts of rage, but then again, I try to ignore them as often as possible.

The staring lasts a few more seconds, and then they start talking with each other in a language I don’t understand. The doctor’s hands are flying all over the place as he talks, and it’s the most emotive I’ve seen him in the over two years I’ve been here. The other Hand is just as expressive now that she’s talking in their language. It’s surprising to see them as anything other than cool, calm, and collected. The woman says one more string of sounds that sound more angry than anything else before she stomps out of the room and slams the door behind her.

“Everything okay?” I don’t walk over to the doctor or even lift a hand to comfort him when he starts rubbing at his eyes until the mask is shifting slightly. He takes a deep breath, turns away from me to readjust whatever it is that makes him look human, and then finally turns back to face me. He stares at me for a moment, like he’s trying to talk himself into telling me something. I look back over at the treadmill, not liking the doctor’s, or really any Hand’s, eye contact for long periods of time. “Should I start?”

“Yes, begin A12-22, sorry.”

The doctor goes to the computer and looks at something on the screen as he sighs some more. Something is obviously bothering him, but we don’t have the kind of relationship where I can ask or comfort him. I mean, the extent of our relationship is that he’s checked to make sure I’m fertile, and that’s about it.

I try not to pay him any attention as I hop on the treadmill and pick a pace that isn’t brutal but will have me sweating in no time.

I actually don’t mind the running part of this. I ran track all through school and was even on scholarship until the world completely turned to shit. Now, the most running I can do is on the treadmills the Hands let unit A12 use on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Running has always been a way for me to clear my mind, forget about my worries for a little while, and just work on pushing myself. Now that the world’s gone belly up? It’s my favorite thing to do.

“A12-22,” The doctor calls me by the name the Hands gave me two years ago. It doesn’t matter that it’s not my name, and definitely doesn’t matter if I try to correct him because he’ll keep calling me by the new name. “I need to share with you some information. I can’t answer any questions you have, and you can’t tell anyone about any of this until you are off this planet.”

My brows pull together, and my eyes cast a glare over to him. Of course, I want to know what he wants to say, but being unable to tell anyone or to ask questions? That’s a tall order, and I don’t know if I can make that promise. The doctor doesn’t wait for my response, though. Apparently, he wasn’t asking. He was telling me what was about to happen.

“If you respond positively to the pheromones I expose you to, you’ll be sent to your new home tomorrow. Something is happening on the planet that we don’t quite understand, but the Creator is guiding us and telling us to send the mates of the warriors in the tribe. It won’t make much sense to you. I understand that, and I am sorry. We didn’t know of this part of their physiology when we started sending the other human females, and that was a failure on our part.”

Sweat breaks across my forehead before I know it. The run shouldn’t be producing such a reaction from me already, but the words the doctor is saying to me have me starting to panic. Mate? Warrior? Being sent tomorrow? No, none of this is right. I was told I was A12-22, which means I go during the twenty-second month. Going this early, it should have me freaking out. And I am, but more than that, I’m kind of excited to get off Earth and go to the new world. Not rational in the slightest.

“I’m telling you all of this now because if you are receptive to the pheromones, you will go into a frenzy of sorts. We have it concentrated, so it’s easier for us to see reactions in humans, but this is the first time we’ve worked with this species or humans.”

“I’m a guinea pig?” I choke out, pulling the little clamp on the treadmill that keeps me connected to it so it slows without me having to do anything. “You’re going to do something to me, and you don’t even know how it will affect me?”

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