Pip's Ophidian Book 1: Beatlebug & The Provider

Chapter 10: Trust

Pip woke with a start, and he was heavy, and the air tasted sterile, and the world was white and light again, and he was alone in his mind.

Mel. Sharp, Jesse, Jesus, Pops, they were gone, he couldn't feel them, Mel!

Pip tried to sit up, but to his horror, he realized he couldn't move more than an inch. He was paralyzed.

The door swished open. Doc walked hurriedly in, scanner in hand, a certain fear in her face, and scanned him. Then turned and said, "He's awake," and Pip heard a start and a rustle and turned and–

Ma.

Pip stared at her. She was disheveled as he had never seen her before, still in the civilian clothes she'd been in at the dinner table almost a week previously, before everything had changed. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and her hair stood on all ends, and when she stared at him, he felt her fear, her relief, her hatred and her love all at once, as he never had before.

Pip burst into tears.

"Stop," she commanded, but the order came out weak, and she reached out a hand and held his. Her hand was cold. "Stop crying. Please, Pip."

A cool pressure on his head as Doc rubbed something on, skin graft ointment. The stitches were gone, and his head felt better, even as it felt worse.

"What did they do to you?" Ma's words were short.

Pip turned to look at her.

Nothing, Mel had said.

"Nothing!" Pip said, and he pulled at his own arms again. He looked down. He was restrained, strapped down. Not paralyzed. "Where are they? Ma, Ma, I have to tell you so much, they're not–they're ok, I promise, don't hurt them, please! They do have language, they're not just dumb animals, they can communicate. And the egg... why did you have the egg? Please, Ma, you have to–"

Ma held up a hand and he stopped short on instinct. She turned to Doc, who had frozen in her efforts and was staring at him with her thin lips slightly parted. "Leave us," Ma commanded, and Doc quickly left.

"Ma, I swear, they didn't mean anything-"

"They cut you open," Ma snapped. "We know that much for sure. They cut into your brain, Pip." and this came out with a strange choke, and she looked away.

"Because," he said, knowing it sounded insane but speaking anyway, "the tracker," a sudden spike of anger in him, and he continued, "that you had put there. That I didn't know about."

"Of course," she said, "and aren't you glad I did. We might not have found you, otherwise."

Pip shut his eyes. How could he even explain? Was there any point? Were they all already gone, dead?

They wouldn't have hurt Jesse, though.

He reached out his mind for her, at the very least, who might know anything at all. He felt Mel's absence–which he had lived with his whole life, yet now–like a wound. Like he had lost a limb.

There was nothing, though. He could feel none of them.

Pip shut his eyes. "Please," he pleaded, "please, Ma. Where are they? Are they dead?"

She looked at him for a moment. Her next words were careful, "No. Of course not, Pip. Do you think we're in the business of killing for killing's sake? We are children of the Prophet."

Relief. Just a twinge, though, of doubt.

"Where are they?"

"The brig."

"Why–" he almost said it: why can't I feel them? He knew with a doubtless certainty he'd have been able to feel Mel, at least, if he could. That Mel, in this moment, would've let the wall down, if he could.

"Can't you sense them? The orange one, in particular?" Ma's words seemed to cut into a secret part of him, and he froze.

She stared hard at him, mouth a thin line.

Pip couldn't even blink.

"We had to sedate it. It woke while Doc was working on you, and did not react well. It nearly killed two of our fine soldiers, you know." She looked down at her nails. He realized they were shorter, whites down to the quick. "It nearly killed me. It stopped, though, when it saw me. Strange."

"He was scared," Pip said helplessly, and she looked up at him blankly. "He... cares about me. He knows you're my Ma. He wouldn't have hurt you."

"It's an Ophidian, Pip. An alien. That, I'd like to point out, kidnapped you, cut you open, and even beyond all that, who you have known for a mere few days."

I have known him a long time...

"He–" Pip started, and then stopped.

Ma sighed. "They do this thing, Pip. I never told you before. It's classified information, you understand. But they go inside your head, they can... change things, in there. Perspectives. Thoughts. Put their own thoughts inside your head." She raised her eyebrows at him. "The orange crested ones are especially adept at this." She stared at him pointedly as she finished. As if this was new information.

As if he cared.

Shouldn't he? Should he?

"Where's the egg?" he asked.

"There's no egg."

"There is!"

"Pip," she said, "this 'egg' is part of the delusion assigned to you. Believe me when I say: you cannot trust anything you think you experienced over there."

Pip shut his eyes. His heart was hammering. He remembered it so clearly. He remembered them all. And Mel–the feeling of being found, being known. Warmth like he had never felt, a mind like a feather bed, a mind he had known his whole life, and also, less than a week. How was that possible?

"What about the human?" he asked. "The other human over there?"

She raised her eyebrows, and what really got him was that her surprise seemed genuine. "See," she said, "this is what I mean, Pip. There was no other human over there."