Kell led the way, bouncing along towards their destination while Rann brought up the rear, her weapon drawn. Stanley looked around in wonder as he was brought through the halls and into the team’s field hospital.

  Seated on one of the beds, Stanley listened to Kell’s instructions through Adrian, rolling up his sleeve when the doctor produced the two vials his blood would soon find itself in. The sharp smell of disinfectant hit him and before he knew it, the procedure was over.

  Adrian stood to the side with an impassive, pallid face, his eyes locked on the empty operating table across the room. Vivid memories of the many times he’d found himself on one streamed through his mind. He broke out into a cold sweat and grew dizzy, black spots appearing in his peripherals. His body flushed with heat and suddenly he found his clothes too constricting. He needed out. He needed –

  “– rian,” came Kell’s call, the sound faraway and muffled through the pounding of blood in his ears. “Is everything alright?”

  Adrian snapped back to the present, teetering dangerously. Rann readied herself to catch him should he fall. Woodenly, he turned to face the doctor. “I’m fine,” he croaked, his voice cracking. “Are we done in here?”

  Kell gave Adrian a critical gaze. “I think you should sit down for a moment.” Adrian flinched and Kell immediately reassessed the situation. “Rann,” he called, “take Adrian and Stanley back to the house. I’ll be staying here to get some work done.”

  Rann opened the door and Adrian shot out of the room, stopping outside in the hall to wait for the others. “We’re leaving,” he called to Stanley, urgency bleeding into his voice. “Now.” Rann motioned for Stanley to leave before her and together they followed his blistering pace back into the house.

  The front door flew open, Adrian searching for the only person he knew would bring him peace. He went straight into Reya’s open arms as she stood up to greet him, sensing that something was amiss. He buried his head in her nape, taking in her calming scent.

  “Adrian, speak to me,” Reya said gently as she cradled him. “What happened?” Ignoring the others as they entered, she kept her attention solely on the person most important to her. She brushed his hair lightly with her fingers, unaware that her touch was the only thing grounding him.

  A shaky breath tickled her skin before he spoke. “Could we get out of here? I don’t want to be inside right now.”

  “How about we go to the firepit,” she cooed. “Rann, could you fetch me a glass of water please?” Rann nodded and immediately fulfilled Reya’s request. Reluctantly, she let go of Adrian and accepted the glass. Reaching for his hand, the pair made their way outside, leaving Stanley alone with Rann.

  There were already chairs set up to accommodate them. Reya gave Adrian the glass and sat him down, promptly getting to work starting a small fire while he absentmindedly sipped on his water. He hardly noticed the time it took to light the wood, his distant gaze not seeing what was in front of him.

  She grabbed her chair and brought it right up next to him so that they could both enjoy the warmth now radiating the fire. Bending over, she planted a gentle kiss on his head and then sat down next to him. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “We were in the med bay,” he started in a low voice, “and everything was going fine. I translated Kell’s instructions and left the two of them to their own devices.”

  “And then?” Reya prompted. She reached over and placed a hand on his arm, giving him her silent support.

  “The operating table caught my eye. All I could think about was the experiments and all the times I was lying on one. And then,” he choked, pausing to take a breath before continuing, “it was suddenly too much.”

  Reya gave him a searching look. “That’s not all, is it?”

  “For moment,” he whispered, “I couldn’t tell if I was just part of another experiment and deliriously making everything since my release up to get away from it all.” He looked up at her for the first time. His free hand reached over and covered hers. “The thought of you not being real – of none of this being real – made the world fall out from under me. I needed to see you, needed to know you’re real.”

  Her look softened. “Some days it’s the same for me. There’s some part of me that’s afraid that I made you up after they injected me that final time. That doubt that I’m just hiding in my mind away from the pain.”

  Adrian looked at his touchstone, his eyes wet. “What if none of this is real?” He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. She was everything he could have hoped for and more.

  “Then it will be the best dream I could’ve asked for,” she replied. “I choose to believe this is real. That you’re real. Terrible things have happened to us. It’s time for the universe to give us something good. To me, you’re that something.” Adrian leaned over in his chair and rested his head on her shoulder, letting her presence soothe him as he closed his eyes. Reya wrapped her arms around him protectively, ready to never let go.

  Kell finished preparing the sample and placed it under the powerful microscope his lab was equipped with. Eagerly, he got into position and looked at the mystery he’d been gifted. Now that he finally had permission to run tests, he was going to ensure that he eked out as much as possible from his limited supply of blood.

  After adjusting the zoom on the microscope, he got his first good look at Stanley’s blood. Tiny black specks moved about freely within, attaching themselves to cells. He homed in further on the oddity. While it wasn’t the microcosm that existed in Adrian’s blood, he identified them as a different form of machine that was busy doing something to each of the cells that they attached themselves to.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Hours passed as he studied the phenomenon, bringing him no further in finding answers to the purpose of the machines. Ensuring everything he’d found thus far was properly documented, he moved on to the next part of his research after admitting to himself that he would get no answers that night.

  Instead, he focused his efforts on identifying the blood’s characteristics, discovering that its type was unlike any he’d ever seen before. He excitedly ran more tests, preparing additional samples as needed. Once finished, he knew it was time to sequence the DNA.

  Transferring the information over to terminal at his desk, he ran it against a sample of his own DNA. The result astounded him. The two sequences he compared were shockingly similar, yet there was enough of a difference to qualify Stanley as a separate species. So similar were the samples that Kell was forced to classify Stanley as a subspecies of a’vaare. The differences in Stanley’s DNA fascinated him to no end.

  He painstakingly studied each of them and logged them. After a while, his thoughts shifted along with his focus. He tore his gaze away from his work and eyed the special cabinet he’d stored Adrian’s blood sample in several months prior, wondering how similar Adrian’s DNA would be to Stanley’s after the experiments performed on him.

  He’d been so focused on whatever was in Adrian’s blood that he hadn’t thought to sequence his DNA at the time when he first studied it. He knew he shouldn’t, but his curiosity got the better of him. He took out the carefully stored sample of Adrian’s blood carefully. He placed it under the microscope and looked. Once again, the sheer difference in Adrian’s silver-pink blood when compared to his own left him speechless.

  Whereas the machines in Stanley’s blood were sparse, Adrian’s was absolutely riddled with them, the variation astounding to see. He lost himself momentarily in watching them. Kell shook his head clear of the distraction and got back to work sequencing Adrian’s DNA and running it against Stanley’s. It took a long time for his terminal to carry out its task, leaving him wondering what the issue was.

  A ding tore him from his musings. The results were in. He paused before opening them, debating whether he truly wanted to go against Adrian’s express wish to keep from being studied. The mystery was too great for him to resist, overcoming any reservations he had about learning the truth.

  He displayed the results and blinked uncomprehendingly. His brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of what the data was telling him. Their DNA was far too different from one another for them to be of the same species, even when accounting for possible variations between individuals.

  Adrian was no longer human.

  Kell checked over his notes one more time. The Tribunal had called upon him to present his findings during the past week of research. What he’d uncovered astounded him, regardless of how it came to be. He wasn’t certain whether the Elders would be of the same opinion.

  He’d been holed up in his lab away from the others, devoted to his research and now it was time to present results. Answers he was reluctant to give out, for he knew they would be hard to swallow.

  Tassie’s voice came in through his comm. “It’s time. I’ll meet you outside the meeting room and connect you once you’re ready. I don’t know what you’ve found Kell but be careful in how you present it.”

  He swallowed hard. If only she knew. Thus far, he’d avoided Adrian for most of the week, using his research as an excuse. Being the only one who knew about his species gnawed at him. He wondered how Tassie did it, learning heavy secrets she couldn’t tell the others. He stood up from his desk in the med bay and left, locking it with the most secure code possible so that none would have access to his lab. He made his way through the ship, where he met Tassie. She ushered him inside and stood him a short distance away from the head of the table.

  “Good luck,” she said as the door sealed shut behind her. Several seconds later, the Elders appeared before him, with Kaius occupying the other end of the table.

  “Doctor,” Kaius said, “present to us your findings. What have you learned from studying the blood samples we bargained for?” Seven sets of eyes fell onto Kell, their gazes sharp pinpricks that unnerved him. He suddenly wondered how Adrian had withstood the scrutiny all those times he stood before the Tribunal.

  He hardly had time to entertain the thought as he deliberated on his next words. “The research is inconclusive,” he settled for. The scowls from around the room made his heartbeat quicken. “I’ve learned quite a bit, however,” he quickly added to mollify his crowd.

  “Can you tell us anything useful?” Cirrus growled. “We need to know if you’ve found answers.”

  “In studying Stanley’s blood, I was able to study his DNA. I compared it to ours to see how closely they matched.”

  “If you’ve learned something so important, why didn’t you start with that! Is the man the same species as us or not?”

  Kell looked her dead in the eye. “Almost.”

  “What in the hells does that mean?” Cirrus groaned, exasperated. “He either is or isn’t. It’s not a hard question to answer.”

  “His DNA is remarkably similar to ours yet the differences I’ve seen are astounding. He must have shared a common ancestor with the a’vaare. It’s like looking at an alternate evolutionary path that occurred under different living conditions.”

  Silence dominated as the Elders digested the revelation. “Is he similar enough to us genetically that he’d be able to reproduce with an a’vaare?” Orryn asked.

  “That’s where I’m unsure. I don’t think it’s possible, as there is enough of a variation that I’d classify them as a separate subspecies of a’vaare that deviated from our evolutionary line millennia ago.”

  “How is that possible? We would have it in our history books if another type of a’vaare existed!”

  “Could a’vaare genetics have been manipulated in an isolated environment to produce these results?” Cirrus questioned. The room swiveled to face her. “The man was found in a pod next to mutated a’vaare at a highly advanced genetics facility. What are the odds of the gru’ul being responsible for such a variation?”

  Orryn scowled. “You still don’t believe Adrian’s claims?”

  “Of course not! How any of you do is beyond me.”

  “We’ve already come to a decision on whether or not we’d accept his claims,” Maraz grumbled. His experiments had yet to produce any results, much to the annoyance of some of his compatriots.

  “Of which I still protest, not that any of you will listen. Answer the question, doctor. Is it possible?”

  Kell hesitated. “We don’t know what the gru’ul are capable of, but yes, it’s possible.”

  “That still doesn’t tell us whether they came from an alien civilization, then,” Cirrus argued. “Just that they’re unfortunate souls who were irrevocably changed.”

  “We’ll continue this discussion later,” Kaius intervened. He turned his attention back to Kell. “What else have you discovered?”

  Kell adopted a serious face. He placed his data slate face up on the table and projected an image of Stanley’s blood on a microscopic scale. “I found what I believe to be nanomachines in his bloodstream, although the material they’re made from is beyond me. I’ve been studying them for a week now and I have no idea how they function nor their purpose. There is one thing I’m certain of, however.”

  “And what is that?” The Elders leaned forward in their seats, anxiously awaiting the answer.

  “It’s lethal.”