Mimic Betrayed Read online

  Mimic Betrayed

  Space Shifter Chronicles, Book 6

  James David Victor

  Fairfield Publishing

  Copyright © 2018 Fairfield Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  1. From the Ground Up

  2. Progress is a Journey

  3. Don’t Take Time for Granted

  4. A Doubtful Ceasefire

  5. De Ja Oh No

  6. Zero Star Accommodations

  7. Processing

  8. Old Chat with Friends

  9. Patience is a Virtue

  10. Looking for Group

  11. Storming the Castle

  12. Reunions All Around

  13. Declarations

  Thank You

  1

  From the Ground Up

  I woke up slowly, my dreams trying to keep ahold of me. But I could hear the keening of the byabos outside, which meant that it was long past dawn.

  I let my eyes open slowly and wasn’t surprised to feel the bed empty next to me. Even after six months of rebuilding, Mimi—my nickname for her, especially now that we were dealing with so many mimics these days—rarely rested for more than a few hours at a time. Often, she would stay with me while I fell asleep, either in my arms as a human, or by my back in her spikey, true form, only to get up once I was truly out and go about her duties.

  I’d tried lecturing her several times on giving herself a break, but she would just smile and assure me that she’d try to do better, even though we both knew she wouldn’t.

  In her defense, there was still so much to do. After the last fight with the alien race, and the mimics’ Hail Mary of absorbing the nuclear waste of the mega-gun we had stolen, we had ended up with nearly a thousand suddenly adult Mimics who went through the most turbo-charged puberty anyone could imagine. As if that wasn’t enough, there were even more that were in a sort of adolescent stage, not too different from Mimi when she was beginning to understand me but not able to take another organic’s form.

  Out of nowhere, we went from dealing with maybe a hundred or so mimics that were capable of speech and more complicated shifting to ten times that. We needed more food, more shelter, and most importantly, more education.

  Technically, Mimi had only moved beyond her child form a little over a year ago now. I knew that she was still learning things about herself and her people. It helped that she was a next-level genius who sometimes even made the coin twins feel unintelligent. But even with all that going for her, there was so much she didn’t know, and the new mimics had so many questions.

  Speaking of which, I needed to get down to the lecture circle in town to see if I was needed for anything.

  I exited my room, heading to the bathroom to start my morning routine. With the synthesizers of our stolen ship online, and a whole lot of pilfered parts from the alien fighters that had been shot down, we had a working sewage and water system to about a quarter of the structures we’d built. Maybe it was silly to be so proud of such a meager accomplishment compared to all that we still had to do, but I couldn’t help myself.

  I finished up in the bathroom and headed downstairs to our kitchen. It was still fairly primitive, with a machine that used a heating coil to cook food that was raw, and a cold-storage unit instead of an on-premise food synthesizer, but it got the job done. If I wanted something special, I could always make the trek to our stolen warship. The supplies on that ship were meant to support nearly two thousand workers for four-year missions, so we were going to be just fine for a while.

  “Hey there, sleepyhead. It’s unusual to see you up so late.”

  I looked down the stairs to see Eske sitting at the table in the central room, a large bowl of fufu, with what smelled like peanut sauce, in front of her. Either she had snuck some seeds from Earth into the communal garden or had taken a trip to the ship while I was sleeping.

  “What time is it?”

  “Just a little past ten. Not a big deal, but I know how much you like your routine.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Ever since doomsday stopped being right over our heads like a malevolent storm cloud, I’d started developing a structure for my day. I found that, with so much else going on, it helped me keep calm against the flood of stimulation always flowing past me.

  “Huh, guess I was tired.”

  “I’m not surprised, considering we tilled an entirely new section of the city for planting yesterday.” She finished up her food and sat back, sighing contentedly. “I’m gonna see who I can round up in a couple of hours for a hand-to-hand lesson. What are you up to?”

  “I was about to head to the circle and see if anyone wanted to sit down for a lesson on Earth culture and how to interact with humans.”

  She nodded. “I see that. But are you preparing for the hope that one day we’ll be at peace with our home planet, or for war with them?”

  “I’d prefer the former, to be honest, but I wouldn’t put the latter past them. I’d like to think that we slowed them down by all the trouble we’ve caused, but not by much. That coup is coming and none of the messages that we’ve sent to Earth Gov to warn them of the usurpers have gone through.” I sighed. “I just hoped Gonzales is doing well. Have we heard from her?”

  It was subtle, but the corners of Eske’s lips went down slightly. “No. Not since she said she couldn’t find any of my family.”

  Ouch. In my just-waking-up mind, I had forgotten that Eske’s family was missing. Gonzales had returned once since she left, bringing the coin twins’ girlfriend—I still had no idea who was dating who in their tightknit triad—and her family, plus a few other contacts. None of Gonzales’s own, I noticed, but even I knew better than to ask.

  She had left immediately, not even spending the night, citing that she hadn’t been able to get a hold of Eske’s family and was going to do some on the ground investigation.

  I missed her. Our family was growing, and Mimi’s people were thriving, but it wasn’t the same without our wisecracking weapons expert. I had figured out after she and I had finally talked that she had feelings for me, though I couldn’t say how deep they ran. And I didn’t know if maybe it was something more. Maybe she was afraid of being…replaced.

  Although her and I weren’t close before my first contact with Mimi, she had been one of the only people that I had talked to on a regular basis. She had been nice, when most people weren’t, and she knew my name. I really valued her, and I wanted us to be close friends again… I just didn’t know how to fix it.

  And after six more months rebuilding her people’s lives, Mimi and I had grown even closer. We were each other’s confidants and haven. I didn’t know what I would do without her.

  Granted, without her, I’d still be a nobody on a ship with an abusive boss, but that was neither here nor there. I had mostly gotten over discrediting myself and telling me that I was just some useless janitor, but I still had flareups every now and then. Thankfully, I rarely had time to indulge in those thoughts, but such was the life of a…whatever the heck I was.

  I went to the fridge and grabbed a couple of the compressed protein bars that Eske liked to make in bulk for the week and headed out. Mimi’s house was no longer the central location of the commune, which had expanded to encompass all of the battlefield and slightly into the forest. Apparently more than a few mimics liked to live in the trees and had built some pretty elaborate treehouses for themselves. While those weren’t decked out with all the electrical and plumbing that the main buildings were, they didn’t seem
to mind. I supposed everything was an upgrade to perpetual slavery and forced eternal mindlessness by an amorphous alien.

  I walked past all the buildings, some of them built European style, some of them mimicking Japanese structures, some Greek, and even some that were completely their own. The coin twins and I had made sure that the mimics had access to all sorts of architectural information, and it was interesting to see who made what due to their personal aesthetic. And even who had personal aesthetics at all.

  That in and of itself was a whole matter on its own. The mimics were just beginning to find out who they were and what they liked, which resulted in a whole lot of experimentation. Although I was bad with names, I recalled there was Mig, who preferred to have one giant eye in the center of her forehead rather than two, and Goshi, who ran around as a multicolored horse that occasionally spoke Common. Thankfully, they were the most out-there, considering that mimics could literally take on multiple forms and manipulate them how they pleased the more experienced they got, but it took some getting used to.

  I reached the circle, which was more toward the center of town but slightly away from the buildings. It was a large area of compacted dirt, with dozens of roughly-made benches. There were a handful of tables scattered about, but not enough for everyone to use them.

  We were in the process of building a school, but it wasn’t as high on the docket as an infirmary, nursery or the like. Although none of us were really clear on how the mimic reproduction thing worked, there were enough fully-grown adults running around now, so that meant babies were pretty much an eventuality.

  Ugh. I wasn’t completely thrilled about adding more to our number considering that we were still figuring so many things out, but we wanted to be prepared. Granted, our nursery was mostly outfitted with ways to document what happened and take samples considering that none of us knew beans about their reproduction and it wasn’t like there were any textbooks on the subject.

  “Hey, guys,” I said to the group sitting there. While there was plenty of work for the mimics to do, all of us had set the rule that each of them needed at least four hours a day where they weren’t trying to help with construction or any other project. It seemed that some of their habits died hard, and relentlessly toiling down to the bone was one of them.

  “Hullo, Leader Higgens,” they chorused. Well, most of them chorused. Even after six months, human speech wasn’t easy for all of them. After observing the growth of hundreds of mimics, we had all definitely learned that their transitions came at different paces.

  “Hello,” I answered back, gently correcting their speech. The ‘Leader Higgens’ thing wasn’t my idea, but it was what they had taken to calling all of us humans, Mimi, and some of her lieutenants. “You guys in the mood to learn today?”

  They nodded eagerly, filing onto the benches. There was only about twenty of them, but that was more than enough.

  “So, what do you want to learn about today? There’s basic math, some Earth history, more Earth customs, language… You all tell me.”

  There was a general murmuring amongst the students. Considering there was more than ten of them, it was doubtful that at least one of them hadn’t attended one of my previous talks, but usually the group was very good at agreeing.

  “How about math?” one of them said after the group seemed to come to a consensus.

  “Math it is,” I said, pulling the holo-projector from the cabinet we kept at the edge of the circle. Once that was all set up, I got to work. It may not have been as cool as the weapons system the twins were making, or the martial arts that Eske taught, or the everything that Mimi did, but considering we were building an entire civilization from the ground up, even the smaller things mattered.

  2

  Progress is a Journey

  I finished the lesson and the group of mimics wandered their separate ways, some of them going to get food while others were just making space for the next group. That was one thing I would miss if the population got bigger. Currently, there was an intense sense of community in our little corner of the universe, with everyone working together to support each other and thrive. As with all civilizations, the bigger we got, the more that would go away.

  “Hey there, Leader Higgens! I figured I’d see you here!”

  I turned from putting away the projector, making sure it was neat for the next person who used it—which was honestly probably going to be me—to see Mari standing a few feet away from me.

  Mari was an…interesting mimic to say the least. One of the little ones that had suddenly become an adult after the absorption of the gun’s runoff, she had styled herself off of one of the sparkling, super cutesy girls from the comic holos that Eske was so partial to.

  She had large, bubblegum pink hair that she wore in pigtails, and a heart-shaped face with a light dusting of freckles. Her eyes were large and sparkling blue, surrounded by long lashes and complemented by her button nose.

  The mimic chose a form that was as short as Ciangi, and styled to be youthful in appearance, making her look like a perpetual child.

  It was quite the confusing conundrum, because in a literal sense, she was a child, only having been an adult for six months. But in another sense, she wasn’t a child at all. She had been alive for about a thousand years, had consumed enough energy to be fully mature, and seemed like she might be able to give Mimi a run for her money on sheer intellect. It was difficult to wrap my head around, so in general, I tried to avoid her.

  Which was difficult because she had taken to following either Mimi or I whenever she could.

  “Hey, Mari,” I said, smiling. “What are you up to?”

  “I was with Leader Mimi while she was looking over the defense grid with Leaders Ciangi and Bahn, but she said she’d like to see you, so she asked me to come fetch you.”

  “Why not just use our comms?” I asked. Bahn had gone through a lot of trouble of making rudimentary, handheld scanners for everyone to use. They all connected to the same grid, allowing communication throughout our entire little city, and thankfully, the new mimics seemed to know not to use it unless they needed it. I suppose it helped that we had three different channels.

  “She did. She said you weren’t answering.”

  I looked down to my wrist, concerned that something had malfunctioned in my much more complicated scanner, only for me to see my arm was blank.

  “Huh, I must have forgotten it back at home.”

  “I figured as much!” Mari said, batting her eyes at me. “So, I stopped by there first and grabbed it.”

  “You went into my room?” I asked cautiously. Maybe it was because of what happened on the ship when Mimi was first discovered by Giomatti, but I was very uncomfortable with someone entering my quarters without permission.

  “Technically, they are Leader Mimi’s vents just as much as yours,” she answered matter-of-factly. “But no, I found it in the kitchen.”

  “Ah, I must have left it there when I was getting food.” She reached into her bag and pulled out my scanner, gently tossing it over to me. “Thank you, by the way,” I said

  “No problems, Leader Higgens! Whatever I can do to help!”

  Wow. She was really happy all the time. I had the feeling that she could give Eske a run for her money on impressive optimism.

  “It is appreciated.” I said, sliding the mechanism on and booting it up. I had gone without it on Earth, but ever since Bahn had recreated one for me styled after the kind we had used when first confronting the alien that used to enslave Mimi’s people, I wore it every day. It was very unusual for me to forget it, but I guessed my mind had been particularly occupied this morning.

  Once it was going, I hit the channel that just us ‘leaders’ used. “Hey, Mimi,” I said, pressing the button to communicate. “You called?”

  “Oh, hello there,” she answered, sounding pleasantly surprised. “I was worried.”

  “Sorry about that. I must have been distracted this morning, I accidentally left it behind.�
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  “I am relieved! If you could, would you meet me at the defense hub?”

  “Sure, I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

  “See you soon. Give Mari my thanks. I assume she is the one that found you.”

  “You are correct,” I said with a small laugh. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I ended the connection and looked to the angelic little mimic waiting for me. “Mimi says thank you.”

  “I heard,” she said, holding out her hand. “Let’s go.”

  I looked to her offered palm, feeling far more awkward than I should for something so simple. “If it’s alright with you, I’d rather not.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, nodding knowingly. “I remember being told you don’t like being touched except by a few people.”

  “That is correct,” I said, heading past her. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not! I’ve been reading up about human psychology, and it’s interesting how neuro-divergent your species is! Mimics more or less all seem to work pretty similarly, but humans…not so much.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” I said, smirking slightly. “Your species is still figuring itself out after years of slavery and forced starvation.”

  “True.” She skipped along beside me, easily keeping pace. She looked like one of those poster children for an ad campaign and it was a bit…disconcerting.

  Thankfully, we reached the defense hub—which was just the fancy name we now gave the crashed alien ship—without any sort of incidents or emergencies. Not that we had a lot of those, but every now and then, there was a fire or some sort of structure collapse. Mari never stopped skipping, her high-pitched, childlike voice chattering away without respite.