Page 65 of Alien Barbarian's Little Human

Only when the blue of Horus Iv’s skies darken to the black of space does it hit me: I’ve done it. I’ve escaped Horus IV. I had pretty much made peace with the fact I would die there not two weeks ago.

Now, I’m finally free. I turn to Magog and smile.

“We did it.”

“Yes, we did.”

He reaches out and we clasp hands across the W shaped console. Laughter reaches my ears. It’s Jessica.

“What’s so funny, sweetie?” I ask.

“Funny? I’ll tell you what’s funny.”

I forget to breathe. That voice. It’s not the voice of a little girl. It’s a cold, bloodless, and relentless sound. A sound I’ve never heard but know all too well.

I turn in my seat to see her silver, soulless eyes staring back at me.

“What’s funny is you think you’ve escaped, instead of trapping yourself in here with me. Make peace with the Precursors, because there will be no reincarnation this time. No rebirth. This time, when I kill the two of you, it will be permanent.”

CHAPTER 19

MAGOG

An unproductive emotion boils inside of me. Panic. This is the very being who took my love away from me in my first two lives. The fact that it could happen again does not stray far from my mind.

“What have you done with Jessica?”

Nerita leans forward like a beast at the end of its leash. Anger seethes from hner every pore. She does not fear him enough, and I perhaps fear him too much.

The silver-eyed being’s face scrunches up into a mask of sheer malicious delight.

“How do you know there ever was a Jessica? Perhaps the girl you think you’ve known all this time has been me all along.”

Nerita shakes her head with vehemence.

“Impossible. Jessica had…has real emotions. A soul. You can’t mimic that, demon.”

Svarz’s evil snicker echoes through the makeshift cockpit. Then it adopts a look of sheer, sad innocence.

“Nurse Nerita, where are my Mommy and Daddy? Are they still alive? I heard people can be trapped under a building for months and still be okay. Can we go and look?”

Nerita’s lips form a thin, tight line as Svarz laughs.

“While you had to relearn everything from scratch each time you were reborn, I’ve been able to build upon my knowledge. I have masqueraded as many different beings over the millenia. Acting like someone you thought needed you was child’s play. No pun intended.”

My cybernetic eye scans Svarz’s form. His nanotech mimics the appearance and even the function of human flesh and blood. How else could he fool the medical scans Nerita subjected “Jessica” to?

That might give me an advantage. While imitating a human form, does that mean human weaknesses? Even a few seconds might give me the time for decisive action to end his threat once and for all.

For now, the best thing I can do is keep him talking.

“Do you really expect us to believe you lurked about in that medical clinic for weeks without revealing yourself? In the last two lives, you acted the moment you pegged her location.”

“Perhaps I was waiting for you, Gog, or whatever name you wear in this life. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting that you’d come back as a cyborg.”

Svarz makes snide air quotes with his fingers.

“But thePrecursors work in Enigmatic ways.Pathetic. You really worship those fools as gods?”

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