Page 2 of Bred

I am curious though. We never see anomalies on patrol. The most exciting thing to happen up here is the occasional bit of space junk getting sucked into Earth’s gravitational field, or maybe a near miss with a satellite, but that’s very rare. Our passage is fairly low and stable, above satellite range, but not so far into space that the weird stuff is likely to happen. Except, now it is. The anomaly I’m reading indicates a distortion in what looks like utterly clear space.

“You’re quiet. Why are you quiet?” she pipes up impatiently.

“Because I’m trying to think.”

If I keep gliding, I’ll be past the anomaly in the next few minutes. Won’t be another chance to go back and look at it. I can radio it in, but that doesn’t mean they’ll find it. I should investigate. Maybe make a discovery. Maybe get my name bumped a little higher up the transfer list.

I shouldn’t be doing this, I tell myself as I tweak the controls enough to send me up and closer to whatever it is up there. These shuttles have very little thrust power once they’re up. We rely on a constant rate of fall toward Earth to stay aloft—essentially, I’m plummeting hundreds of miles every second. It just happens that the Earth is curving away at the same rate, so I stay up. They do have some propulsion though, to get out of orbit, and in case of emergencies. This isn’t an emergency, but I’m about to make it one.

“I think Kim is a good name,” Caddy chats away as my ship rises away from Earth. “It’s historical, you know? Kim Kaddashian?”

“You really want to saddle your kid with that legacy?”

“Uh, you mean, the legacy of the president of the United States?” Caddy raises her voice.

“The last president, I think you mean, before the United States was officially dissolved?”

“Right. It’s historical. My mother named me after them too. It’s tradition! My great-great-grandmother remembers the first episode.”

Honestly, I don’t care what she calls her baby. I have considerably bigger problems. The anomaly is getting closer and weirder. I squint my eyes at the display, which is reading out screeds of data ever faster, then look back out at the space beyond. The data does not match reality. According to the numbers, there’s something very, very large and very solid dead ahead of me, but I can’t see a thing.

Less than a thousand miles away, I see a slight shimmer in the sky. I don’t think the sensors were wrong. There’s something there. Oh, holy shit. There’s something there!

Caddy is still talking. I don’t know what she’s saying. I’m not listening. I’ve forgotten about everything besides the intense weirdness before me. The shuttle I’m in travels at over seventeen hundred miles per hour, which means I am flying toward this anomaly at a rate that will propel me directly into it in a matter of seconds. I suddenly realize that it’s too late to adjust course. I don’t have enough power to radically alter my trajectory. I am going to fly right into it.

Space is shimmering and twisting and...

Fwomp!

Chapter Two

Talon

“See how she draws the seed toward her,” the medical officer breathes with husky reverence. “Thousands of small genetic cells propelled by instinct and will toward the egg.”

We are watching a live feed of a conception occurring in real time, a mating occurring between one of our finest males and a female caught in an outer atmospheric sweep.

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