Calvin C

Flight of the Jay

In 2032 the Dark Side lunar telescope made the most important discovery of the 21st century: a planetary system orbiting a sun similar to our own less than 60 light years away. The fourth planet from the star being a world of abundant water, and an oxygen rich atmosphere. The discovery was greeted with much excitement, and radio telescopes were reoriented towards the planet in the hope that there may be evidence of intelligent life. An extensive search could yield no sign of any radio communications, and after a year the search was abandoned. If there was any life on this world, it was presumably still too primitive for such communications.

One researcher was not so convinced. He argued that the vast majority of earth based communications were digital now, and that an observer of such communications would not be able to discern the difference between these and background communications, unless one understood the timing of data packets.

This researcher hypothesised that any data frames transmitted would need a non random, non encrypted training period between frames. He developed a mathematical model that he applied to the apparently random radio emissions that had been collated and eventually proved that the background radiation from the planet was not random after all. He demonstrated that there were communications coming from the direction of the planet.

In a paper that was enough to win him a Nobel prize, he also demonstrated that the communications appeared to be coming from much closer than anyone had thought. Blue shifted communications from something travelling directly between that solar system and ours, very very fast. What was more, the blue shift was decreasing over time. Whatever was coming was slowing down.

Attempts were made at sending messages to whatever was approaching, but nothing was received by way of reply. And then, in 2042 all communication with the lunar colonies, including the Dark Side telescope and the helium mines were suddenly lost.

A day later came the sickness.

***

"Jason, what have you got there?"

Jason looked down ruefully at the football in his hands. Nothing served to wind mum up as stating the obvious, he thought to himself – and so said: "It's a football ma."

"I can see it's a goddamn football you stupid child. What are you doing coming home with it when you were supposed to be fetching food?"

The boy shrugged. He fetched food every day, when he could find it. A couple of years ago that had just meant going into some deserted supermarket and finding tins on the shelves – or more often on the floor where the last scavengers had left what they could not carry. But that was all long gone. The cities stank back then of dead bodies and worse. Nowadays the corpses had been picked to skeletons by scavengers, which had also spread the bones far and wide. Now the cities were clean enough to live in again, but there was no food there. If you tried going there you were more likely to get eaten yourself.

Jason's parents had seen the way things were going and moved on out to a farm, and they had some success growing maize. There were no animals to be found though, and sweetcorn got to be a boring diet – especially as the variety they grew was the one that was meant for cattle so it did not taste like anything the Jolly Green Giant would have called his own.

So each day Jason and his sisters were sent off to scavenge surrounding farms and houses. They kept away from the farms to the north, because other survivors were hiding out there, as dad had discovered, to his ultimate cost. To the south the buildings were empty of people and sometimes they found stores of food that had not been touched.

Not today though. All Jason had found was a ball, but hard as life was, he was still only 11 3; or maybe 12, he was not quite sure any more. In any case, having a ball to play with did not seem to be such a crime.

Mum sighed and obviously came to the same conclusion.

"Just don't play with it near 3;"

He never found out what area was to be kept game free, because at that moment there was a loud roar from overhead and the sun vanished behind the dark disk of a Monkship. A beam of light fixed on Jason, another on his mother. Two more pointed to where his sisters had been walking towards the farm. It was not dark out yet – the sun was dipping towards the horizon, but was still casting golden rays across the fields, but these beams seemed brighter than the sun, picking out the four petrified figures.

Jason lost control of his bladder, and he was vaguely aware of hot pee running down the legs of his jeans as something came loping fast across the fields. He saw it, scuttling like a huge black crab, but bristiling with the strange vinelike protrusions that emanated from the central crab like body. Tentacles that seemed to act as arms for these creatures.

Jason ran, and the light followed him.

"In the house, quick!" screamed his mother and she turned and sprang for the doorway. Jason followed her, and the lights followed them both, shining on the house like a laser pointer pointing out sums on a whiteboard.

There was no safety to be found inside though. The thing – whatever these things were – ripped the door open like it was cardboard, and at the same time its tentacles came snaking through three different windows, sending glass imploding into the house. Mum screamed and tried to shield Jason.

"Not my babies. Don't take my babies." She sobbed. And then a tentacle punctured her throat and she fell to the floor, coughing and gagging her last few moments of life away.

Outside there were screams from the girls which were cut off as they too were dispatched by quick jabs from razor sharp tentacles.

But Jason was not so lucky!

As he whimpered and moaned, too shocked to moe, standing behind his mother's twitching body, a tentacle wrapped itself around his body, curling like a boa constrictor around its victim. It snatched him up and lifted him out of the ruins of his home, pulling him through the shattered doorway. It lifted him up to the hovering monkship, maybe 15 or 20 metres above the ground.

The terrified boy looked down to see himself held high in the air by a thin tentacle that could easily dash him to the floor at any second. He thought that was what it would do, but instead a hole opened in the bottom of the monkship and the tentacle thrust him through, dropping him onto a metal floor. Then the door closed, and all was dark. And he was alone.

***

Jason tumbled into a small dark and very smelly space. The monkship had stopped travelling, and the door had opened again. More tentacles had grabbed the struggling, sniveling boy, wrapping him tightly before extracting him from the cell he had been travelling in. He heard a snipping and the sound of tearing cloth, and then his clothes were being shucked off. Shirt, shoes, jeans and then even his underpants. When he was naked, he was dropped – from how high he was not sure, but high enough to hurt when he smacked against a hard floor. Not so hard that anything broke.

Jason groaned, rubbing a bruised butt and arm. He felt around himself. There were bars around and above him now. The hole he was dropped through having been blocked off. The floor was hard, unyielding but cold and smooth like polished stone. He could see nothing, but there were sounds. Shuffling sounds, like there was something alive here 3; and then a cough. Definitely someone alive.

"Who's there?" Jason whispered. He did not know why he whispered – it just came out that way, and his voice wavered.

"You are just a kid!" A surprised voice. A man's voice.

"I 3;I'm 12 3;" he started as though to protest he not just a kid, but then the more pressing concerns overwhelmed him "Where are we? What's going to happen?"

The adult voice did not respond for a few minutes, and when it did it sounded more gruff than before. Not frightened, so much as sad.

"This, kid, is a monk reassignment facility. You 3; me 3; we are going to be 3; reassigned."

Jason swallowed, and realised that his mouth was very dry. He needed a drink. He did not know what reassignment was, but he knew who the monks were. The invaders had come from a star in the constellation of monoceros, the unicorn. But "monocerids" was too much of a mouthful so everyone had started calling them monks for the first 24 hours of the war, when there had still been enough people around to communicate with one another, and the sickness had not yet wiped out nine people in ten, leaving just those who had carried some kind of natural immunity.

"Please 3;" Jason croaked, "please 3;what is reassignment?"

There was a sigh in the dark and no answer. Jason did not like to ask again, so he sat in the corner of his cage, knees drawn up under his chin, miserably reliving the moment over and over again when a tentacle had punched through his mother's throat. He sobbed, head buried in his hands in the dark.

"Don't cry kid. It'll be done soon enough 3;"

For calming words, they were pretty naff, but the sound of another voice offered some small comfort. At least there was some other human here with him. Jason continued to sob, but less noisily.

"What's your name, kid?"

Jason told him.

"I'm Kurt. Kurt Weston. Ex of the resistance."

"Resistance?" Jason's voice pitched high with curiosity.

"Shit boy. You know there are people fighting these things right?"

But Jason hadn't known. All he had known was the need to survive and lay low and hope no one ever found the farm. He told Kurt about the farm that his parents had built. Told him about his sisters, and the endless search for food, and the unfriendly northern neighbours who had shot dad dead. His whole life for the last two years tumbled out.

"Well, you ask me, your parents were stupid." Kurt remarked when the boy's spiel came to a halt.

"I didn't ask."

"Nope."

Silence.

Jason shuffled miserably, fidgeting, his thoughts in a turmoil.

"Why were they stupid?" He asked at last, miserably, feeling he had lost some kind of battle by asking.

"They were stupid because there was no way the monks are gonna let anybody live. They just left small families like yours til the end to mop up. You can't run a farm and not be noticed."

Jason bit his knee, tears rolling down his cheeks. What other option had there been?

"See they think of humans as vermin. They want our planet, and they are not, and I repeat, not gonna share it. So they are wiping us out, bit by bit.

"You want to know why you are alive and your mum and sisters are dead? Simple – No new humans are allowed. Girls get exterminated. Most men do too – all the old ones, and til I saw you I thought all the young too. Never saw them take anyone less than late teens before.

"And those that get killed quick 3; I guess they are the lucky ones. Coz you and me, see 3; you and me are to be reassigned. But before they reassign us they are going to make very sure we cannot breed either.

"Was not one reassigned man I ever heard of who still had his balls." Kurt choked for a second. He paused, and there was a shuffling sound from the direction of his cage. After a while he continued, as though he had never paused.

"And then when they are done making us never able to breed, they will turn us into killing machines designed to seek out and destroy our own kind.

"See, the monks cannot go lots of places we can go. They are bigger than us, so subways, sewers, cave systems, mines 3;they are all places the minks cannot follow. They started off sending small robots in after us, but we got good at dealing with those.

"That was when they started using our own people against us. Capture a soldier, rewire him, do something screwy to his brain, lace him with explosives and send him home. And then when the soldier is welcomed back inside 3; Boom!

"You and me 3; we are just unwilling suicide bombers now boy. The only way we are not gonna kill our own people is if they shoot us dead first.

"Since we got smart to them and started shooting people we lost for a while, and asking questions later, they started making fighting modifications too. Maybe I will get to shoot my way home before blowing up everyone I care about. I fucking hope they know to blast me to hell before that happens."

Jason started to cry again, and Kurt went quiet, obviously feeling he was more comfort when he was not talking.

One thing wasn't right though. Why did they need Jason? Jason's family were dead now. No one was going to welcome him home and he did not even know where the resistance were. Jason sniffed and crouched in his corner, and did not say anything else.

After a while, the silence was broken by some rustling noises, and then some moaning and grunting from Kurt. Jason didn't understand what the sounds meant, but he thought the man did not sound like he was in pain. In fact, he almost sounded like he liked it.

And then a deep sigh, and he muttered something. Maybe a name. Was it 'Annie'?

"Aw fuck it 3; " And now Kurt sounded sad.

***

Light.

So bright it hurt. Jason was instantly awake. When had he fallen asleep? He could not remember, and for a few seconds he could not even remember where he was. For a few wonderful seconds, he was waking up at home, before the invasion, sunlight streaming through the window where wind had billowed the curtains open, warm bright rays falling on his face. For a few seconds his family were still alive in his mind, and he would go downstairs to breakfast to find his parents chattering and his sisters squabbling over who got the toy in the breakfast cereal box.

And then, blinking, his eyes focussed, and memory flooded back.

He was still in his cage, and around him there were other cages, but all of them empty. One cage had an open door, but Kurt was not there. He was not far away though.

The room was dome shaped. A circular wall ran right around of some 30 metres diameter, and curved overhead to make a vaulted roof. In addition to cages covering half the circle of the room, there was some large pedestal in the middle, with what could only be some kind of alien control system on it – a mass of holes, tubes, lights and stalks. On the far side of the room was a blank wall, but for Kurt.

When Jason saw Kurt, he gasped in dismay. The man did not look much like he had imagined last night. He was dark haired as he had imagined, and lean and fit – but he was much dirtier than he had thought, covered in stubbly beard growth and with a haunted look in his eyes. He was completely naked and strapped to the far wall, with his legs apart and his arms outstretched above his head so his body made a kind of X shape. The straps were silvery, like metal but seemed to mould to his body like fabric, and disappeared into the wall, where there was no obvious hole or structure.

Jason stared at the man and was slightly embarrassed. He had not seen many naked men, although occasionally when changing in the public pool before the invasion he had done so. Also when dad had just had a shower. Then again he had not seen many men of any kind for a while.

Kurt, though, had more between his legs than Jason remembered elsewhere. He vaguely remembered the term people used. "Well hung". He had not seen many well hung men before.

A door slid open in the wall where there had been no sign a door should exist, and one of those things scuttled in. Jason cried out in alarm, and Kurt looked towards him.

"Oh, you are awake then kid." He said, his voice not strong, and maybe a little higher than it had been last night. Jason could make out a sheen of sweat on the man, and realised he was trembling. He was afraid.

And that seemed fair enough. Jason moaned and crawled into the far corner of his cage, as though trying to hide. But there was no hiding from the horror of the next hour.

The worst of it came quickly. The creature scuttled on its crab like legs, skittering noisily over the floor, and up onto the podium. Tentacles snaked out and disappeared into tubes and the thing faced Kurt, as lights flashed and the machine seemed to click and twitch back at the creature, speaking some weird alien language that for all the world, sounded like dolphin.

Almost at once, tentacles of the flowing metallic substance that the restraints were made from snaked from the floor. Directed by the creature on the pedestal, one tentacle stroked Kurt's cock, and the man moaned.

Then the tentacle seemed to change shape flowing around the cock, and engulfing it. Jason could see the shiny surface begin to shimmer and pulse like waves running to shore. Kurt reacted by groaning, and then he pushed his hips forward and thrust. Jason watched, fascinated, as the tentacle/glove thing massaged the man's cock, and the aroused man began fucking it. His face was red, perhaps from embarrassment, but he also clearly liked it and he thrust harder and harder, until with an explosion of breath, he let out a huge gasping moan, hips pushed forward and holding it as he had what would be his last ever orgasm.

Jason was just old enough to understand the intense feelings of pleasure that were washing through the man's body at that moment, having recently discovered the joys of playing with himself down there. He watched, fascinated at the man's pleasure that for the short time it lasted, blotted out all fear, all shame, all thought of anything but the wonderful feeling of pumping his load into the thing that held his cock tight as a woman's orgasming pussy.

Kurt gasped and his ejaculation came to an end, pumping a last few drops into the shimmering tentacle.

And when he was done, the tentacle let him go, and flowed away across the room, where it released milky fluid into a glass jar, that was then sucked away into the floor.

As this was happening, another two tentacles were back. One wrapped itself around the man's cock, and lifted it up, pushing it against his stomach. Kurt gasped, his cock still tender. The other tentacle snaked across, and its end was hardened into a shining blade.

Jason hardly had time to see what happened next, it was so quick. In the time it would take to sneeze, the tentacle had sliced an opening in the man's scrotum from the base of the penis down. Then it disappeared into the aperture and Jason saw the ball sac pulse and distend quickly several times.

By the time Kurt began to scream, two round objects had already popped out of the aperture and were falling to the floor with a plop.

The tentacle withdrew, changed shape and now it engulfed the empty sac, taking its shape, but shrinking.

Kurt screamed and kept on screaming, tugging hard at unyielding restraints 3; shouting something, but his words making no sense, punctuated only by his agonised shrieks.

Jason hugged his knees and cried. He looked away. But then he had to look back. Not seeing was even worse than seeing.

As the tentacle withdrew, Jason looked hard at the empty scrotum. It was hardly visible now – just dark skin below the man's penis, like it had shrunk to almost nothing. The blood was gone too from where the thing had touched him – leaving a curious clean area surrounded by spattered red fluid that was running down his legs.

The wound may have been repaired, but Kurt's agony was still intense, and he continued to scream. The creature was not done with him yet though, and as the man writhed in agony at every touch, the creature controlled tentacles which cut, prodded, engulfed and injected the struggling man.

Over the course of an hour, some kind of network of metal structures were built up around the man's body, mirroring his bone structure and musculature. A framework like a metal exoskeleton was built along his bones, reminding Jason of text book drawings of human skeletons.

And then, slowly the metal seemed to be absorbed inside the body. A few larger structure remained outside the body, but most of the framework was absorbed into the man.

Last his head was shaved, and some structures were built there too. Now there were five tentacles all at work together, and all at once, Kurt went rigid.

Kurt's eyes went wide and he fell silent, mid scream.

Jason watched in horror as the man 3; or what had been a man 3; seemed to freeze as still as a statue, staying that way for several minutes.

And then he started to shake, violently all over. Then he was still again.

At last, Kurt seemed to relax. His breathing became easier, his head lolled forward and he began to sleep.

The creature scuttled away. The lights went out. In the chamber there was now not a sound but Jason's terrified sobbing, and Kurt's restful breathing.

***

Jason never saw Kurt again. At some point there was a sound – a door maybe – a scuttling swish of tentacles, and then there was no sound from Kurt anymore.

Later another sound, more swishing and something rattled his cage. Jason curled up in a corner, but a tentacle found him. He screamed as it probed his face, feeling it hover in front in the pitch black, and then it found his mouth.

He backed away, but another tentacle found him, held him and then he realised he was being given water. He lapped the cool stream that was filling his mouth, gratefully, having not realised how thirsty he had become until he started to drink.

To soon the tentacles withdrew, and left him in the dark.

One thing was clear though – the tentacles could "see" in the dark.

Jason guessed the monks themselves needed light, so the one operating the machines had needed the lights on. But whatever control system had just given him water had not needed to see him – not with ordinary light at least.

***

Jason awoke to tentacles wrapping around his body, and he started to struggle and cry out in fear. It was still dark, but his cage was open, he was being dragged out.

"No 3;" he moaned. And he thought, not yet – please, please not yet.

But whatever his thoughts, his prayers were not going to be answered today. he felt his legs being forced apart, and then his arms. He felt restraints, firm around his wrists and ankles, and yet not painful. He was sobbing when the lights came on, bright and painful.

He was about to be reassigned, he knew.

And he was all alone.

Jason's bladder let go the little pee he had inside him.

***

He had watched Kurt being castrated just yesterday. Or was it even today? He had no idea how long he had been caged up, or how long he had slept. It occurred to him suddenly that maybe the water had been drugged with something to make him sleep, but however long it had been, it felt like yesterday.

And now here he was in the same place. One of the terrifying monk creatures had climbed onto the podium. Was it the same one? How could he possibly know. Did they all look identical or did he keep seeing the same creature? The though slipped into his mind and as quickly slipped out again, as the tentacles snaked out of the floor, and one of them engulfed his small and hairless penis.

Where Kurt had been large and hairy, he felt very much still just a boy, but the tentacle did not seem to care. It wrapped his flesh, and he felt a tightness engulf him that then started to ripple. Instantly his cock was hard. He was not a stranger to this feeling, but it was very much a private feeling, and he did not like the terrifying alien thing inducing it. But at the same time it felt good, and he thrust his hips forward.

Jason moaned as the tentacle wrapped his cock firmly and pulsated in time with his thrusting, and it did not take long for the most amazing sensation of orgasm to wash through his body. He gasped and felt his cock pulsing with sudden ecstasy. He felt himself shoot cum – something he had only recently begun doing – and the feeling in his penis was more amazing than any he had ever felt before. Had he not been so terrified of what was about to happen, this could have qualified as the most amazing moment of his life. He groaned and pushed his hips forward, the tentacle sucking his boy juices away.

And then it let him go and his last ever orgasm was over.

Seconds later, while his cum was being deposited in a jar, and a sick dread was settling in Jason's stomach, the second tentacle flashed upwards, the cutting edge glinting in the bright light of the room. Jason moaned and began to struggle. A tentacle lifted his now very sensitive cock up and pushed it against his stomach, exposing his 12 year old sized balls.

"No 3; please no." He begged, and repeated it once more before the tentacle darted down in a single fluid slash. Jason looked down and nearly fainted. He could see his scrotum cleaved apart, droplets of blood appearing along the lines of the cut. Something exposed inside. It did not really hurt yet, and he registered what had happened like a far away observer, as though this could not really be happening.

And then the tentacle snaked around and he could see the single blade turn itself into three smaller protrusions before its end vanished into the hole in his ball sac.

Jason watched in horror, seeing the sac distend, and feeling something pulled inside him and suddenly there was pain, like he had been kicked in his balls. His sack was moving like something was fluttering around inside there. He heard a sizzling sound he had been too far away to notice with Kurt, and then a tiny snicking, after which his balls just kind of spilled out of the hole in his scrotum.

The whole process took seconds, but by the time the balls plopped to the floor, to be whisked away by another tentacle, Jason was screaming in agony. Blinding pain that made him feel sick filled his groin and stomach and he writhed in his restraints, hardly aware of the tentacle that spread over his wound. He was only vaguely aware of the feeling of heat as whatever repair it worked took place, and he did not even see the tentacle removed, because he had passed out by then.

***

Jason came around to find the lights still on, but the monk had gone. He was back in his cage, lying on the floor on his side in the recovery position and no longer trussed up against the wall.

He moaned. The pain in his groin was still intense, but he ached all over – especially his back. Jason looked down in sick dread, and started to cry when he saw his cock dangling above an empty space where he used to have balls.

Jason felt a pain in his butt 3; no above his butt. Gingerly he reached a hand around to rub it.

He stopped. There was something there. Slowly he traced its outline with his finger, and realised that there was something round and metallic feeling just above his bum. He explored it some more and found a lip around its edge, with a depression in the middle. He put his finger in there – and then jerked it out quickly. The thing had just given him an electric shock.

Jason whimpered.

There was also a pain in his back, a little below his shoulder blades. In fact it was a pain under each shoulder blade. He could not quite reach there or see there, but imagined some similar implant might be there too.

Jason moaned again.

What had they done to him?

And then there was a tentacle finding his mouth again, and he was allowed to drink. Jason drank deeply. The water tasted sweet, and he wondered vaguely if it was safe, but he no longer cared. He was thirsty and he slaked that thirst.

***

Jason screamed in agony. The gap between his legs ached, and the skin was tender and sore, but that was mild compared to the pain he was feeling in every muscle of his body. His very bones felt like they were aching, and he felt sick. His stomach did heave a few times, but it was empty and all he brought up was a spattering of foul smelling liquid.

Mercifully he slept often. The sleep must have been brought on by the liquid he was being given. He drifted into spells of agonised wakefulness, and other periods of sleep, in which he tossed and turned in the small cage, moaning and calling out for his daddy to come take him away.

The lights were back off most of the time, but occasionally they would be on and a monk would be at the control pedestal, doing something – God knew what, clicking away in it's unintelligible language.

***

How long passed, Jason could not know, but at last they came for him again, extracting him from his filthy cage. He was hosed down by a tentacle, and then fastened to the wall. The lights were back on, and Jason was squinting all through his shower, they hurt him so much.

He was fastened to the wall, but this time he was facing it, his cheek resting against the smooth cool surface, his back facing the monk that was hissing and clicking at the controls. He was past caring now, and did not scream when the tentacles found him, probing him.

And then there was a click, and the aperture above his butt seemed to be pulled 3; And there was something there, like a weight attached to him and hanging down. He turned his head as much as he could but could not see his butt, although there was something like a tentacle hanging down there. Was that attached to him? And what was that being carried towards him by a snaking tentacle? What could only be described as a shiny wing, made from the flowing metal like substance these creatures were so fond of.

The wing was being lifted behind him, and now he could not see what was happening, but when he felt the pull on his back, just below the shoulder blade, he knew that the wing was being fastened to him.

The wing pulled on the aperture, and Jason was aware the feeling of pulling was stretching up and down his rib cage, as though the aperture were anchored on multiple ribs.

A final click and the tentacle working on him withdrew and another one was coming with another wing. Looking over his shoulder he could see the first wing folded and much higher than his head.

When the second wing was fastened, tentacles probed him some more, and then the thing he had been dreading as much as his castration – the tentacles began to shave his head.

"No, please 3; Please no." He moaned over and over, but not to any thing that seemed able to understand him.

A tentacle came at him, and it was carrying some kind of circlet, fitted with a mesh. The circlet was placed on the head of the moaning, traumatised eunuch. He felt the now familiar coldness of the metal band flowing to fit his skull perfectly. He did not see the mesh begin to dissolve into his scalp, but he knew it. His head felt hot 3;very hot. It began to ache terribly, and he gasped and writhed in pain.

The headache was intense. It was sin acute that he started to squeal in pain, squirming against his restraints.

And then Jason saw a bright flash of light, and all sensation seemed to cease.

***

He was in a room of light. Nothing but light.

He looked around and saw standing a little way off and to his right, the figure of a man. Heart in his mouth, Jacob tried to move towards him. It couldn't be 3;

"Dad?"

The man looked at him and smiled.

Jason tried to drag his limbs but it was like he was stuck in treacle, and he had no energy. He wanted to throw himself into his father's arms. Everything was okay now. All the hurt and misery was past. He was with his dad now. If only he could move.

But then he blinked, looked again. There was something not quite right.

"Dad?"

His father shook his head.

"I am not your father, but this is an adequate image for you to use for me."

Jason looked confused. What was he even doing here? Where was he?

"Do not fight the reprogramming. It will done quicker if you do not fight. We are able to communicate with you through this link. I see that it is working correctly. Just a few minutes more and your troublesome consciousness will no longer be in our way."

Jason shook his head. What was happening? Where was he? Suddenly a spasm shook his body and all seemed to go dark again.

***

"What is your name?" Dad's voice was in his head.

The boy blinked his eyes open, and took in the circular room. There were cages, and a pedestal, and behind the pedestal 3; His father? He felt so confused, and so tired too.

"What is your name?" Daddy asked again.

What WAS his name? He reached into his memory and tried to dredge it out. He felt so confused. Like some part of him knew the answer and was desperate to shout it out, but that part of him was lost. That part of him was not necessary.

"J 3;" he frowned. He could not remember but it started like that. "Jay" he said again.

"What is your purpose?"

That one was easier.

"To serve you."

Daddy made some adjustments, and the restraints were removed. Tentacles balanced Jay as he found his feet. He was off balance, but a flick of his tail steadied himself.

Tail? But the fleeting feeling of strangeness vanished as daddy spoke to him right into his head.

"That is right Jay, my little raptor. You are to serve me. Seek out prey. Kill it, or render it unable to breed. I do not care which. But serve me well."

Jay knew he would. He was desperate to show daddy how good a raptor he could be. He would not fail his daddy.

"I will open the roof now. Fly away Jay."

The ceiling parted above the boy, and he looked up to see stars in the sky. Familiar stars, but when had he seen them before? He tried to remember but could not.

"Go boy. Bring me back prey."

He did not need telling again. Jay stretched his wings, and flapped. He felt the air under them, felt the sudden down draft. He flapped again, and again very fast now and his body rose into the air.

Jay soared up, out into the night. He flew high above the ground, looking down at the domes of home. He would make daddy proud. He would find prey like he was told.

He flew to the top of a ruined building – an old church, and perched there for a while, catching his breath.

Jay stretched his hands out, feeling his talons emerging from his fingers and toes. He gripped the church roof with his biochrome taloned feet, flapped his wings, opened his mouth and howled to the night.

He was free. He was strong. He was hungry.

Jay soared into the air again, and began to hunt.

Jay, the Angel who Fell to Earth

Jay is a eunuch who has been altered to give him the power of flight. His mind has been reprogrammed to seek out prey for what he thinks of as daddy – the alien who reprogrammed him. His programming is to kill or neuter any prey he finds. But then, when was programming ever bug free?

Prologue

Night!

Beautiful night.

Cool air, moist rain,

Wood smoke on the breeze.

Sounds of laughter:

Three men and a boy.

Prey!

Swooping low,

Talons extended.

No one sees death on the wing.

The boy runs.

Daddy wants him.

Thrust and cleave.

A boy no longer.

He drops to the ground in agony.

Another man runs,

Cannot catch him.

Need to bring daddy to collect his gelding.

Mira's Story

Mira cursed as she heard a ripping sound from her satchel, followed by the clang of six tins of Heinz spaghetti hitting the hard tarmac of what was once a busy traffic artery, and was now just the parking lot for hundreds of vehicles. She had struck lucky with one of them – beside the skeletal remains of its last occupant, she had found shipping bags, and although the perishables were long since gone, no scavenger had found a way to eat the contents of the tins.

She pulled off her hooded top – relieved from the remains of the Next store earlier that day – and started wrapping the tins in that. But as she picked up the third tin, she stopped and her blood froze. She had heard a growl.

Mira fought the urge to run at once, and keeping her breathing level, she looked up, carefully reaching for her knife.

She could see four dogs, but there would be more. They growled again, menacing, but not immediately attacking. Dogs could be vicious in packs, but they were still dogs. Mira used to have a dog, and she tried to remain calm, and let them know she was top dog here. It had worked before and she had walked away from potential attacks.

But this pack looked vicious. These were fighting dogs. The smaller one was definitely a pit bull, and she knew size was no measure of its aggression. She felt the weight of her knife, and then all at once, the pit bull sprang. She lifted the blade as she swung her hooded top full of tins at the animal. The tins hit its flank, sending it sprawling.

Mira whirled around. An alsation was leaping for her throat, so she offered it her arm. The bite hurt as teeth ripped into her flesh, but she was able to lift the arm, exposing the dog's throat long enough to open it with her knife. The creature howled as she flung its dying form away, but any hope she had that this would distract the other dogs died as she saw the pit bull spring for her.

Teeth closed around the knife arm, and she screamed, dropping the blade.

There was a sudden rush of air, a shadow and a loud crack and the pit bull's head parted company with its body. A shower of blood followed and as Mira tried to make sense of what she was seeing, some giant shining bird seemed to systematically kill every dog that did not immediately turn tail and flee.

Seconds later Mira stood in the centre of what looked like a crime scene. A pit bull head lay at her feet, wearing a surprised expression, and everywhere there was blood and eviscerated remains of the dog pack. And in the midst of it, two wings, like the wings of an angel.

The angel turned around, and Mira realised what she was looking at was a boy. A naked boy.

But even as this thought crossed her mind, she saw that no – this was no boy. Not anymore. She pulled her eyes away from his castration scars and took in the rest of him. His reddish brown hair was short like a soldier buzz cut, but circling his head was a chrome band, made from the same polished metal that his wings were made from. He also had metal bands around his feet and his wrists, and protruding from his fingers and toes were talons of the same substance. They looked viciously sharp, and were red with canine blood.

The wrist bands ran back to the elbow, like bracers on an archer, and protruding behind the eunuch there appeaered to be a tail of the same substance. All that metal must weigh a great deal – so how had the boy flown?

Mira took all this in in an instant. She faced the strange child, and knew that boy he may have been, but the only things that could have done this to him would be the Monks. She backed away nervously as the boy looked at her, his head cocked on one side as though trying to work out what to make of her.

"Please 3; Please don't hurt me." Mira whimpered, backing away, holding her knife, and knowing after the killing demonstration she had just seen that it was not going to help her at all.

The boy opened his mouth and howled, and Mira saw white teeth, but also canines that had been enhanced by this same shining metal. They were longer, and sharper, more like the teeth of the dogs he had just killed.

Mira shuddered, and stepped back again, nearly tripping over the body of a dying dog. The boy 3; the eunuch 3; thing 3; was looking at her, steel blue eyes boring into her.

What did he want?

What was he?

She was not going to stay and find out. Mira turned and ran down the street. She heard a swishing, felt a rush of air and instinctively dodged to her right. The boy had flown right over her and was now standing in front of her, same strange expression on his face, like he was puzzled about something.

Mira made to move right and the boy shadowed the movement. She raised her knife, and the boy snarled like one of the dogs he had just destroyed.

Shivering, she looked at the knife, then at the feral child. She let the knife fall to the ground, and stifled the urge to sob.

"Who 3; who are you? What are you?"

The boy put his head on one side, his snarling faded as soon as the knife fell to the ground and now he was regarding her curiously. He moved his mouth as though trying to make it work again after long disuse.

"Jay."

That was all he said. Just the one word. His name, she thought. It had to be a name.

"Jay." She repeated and looked at him nervously. She swallowed, and took a deep breath. "Thank you for saving me Jay."

Was that a flicker of a smile from the boy? or had she just imagined it.

Jay took off again. Mira heard the swish of the wings, and watched them in amazement. They looked like metal but they rippled and flowed and moved like fabric. She was reminded of a silk shirt, billowing in the breeze.

The boy dropped beside one of the dead dogs, picked it up, and then launched himself in the air again, gliding to where Mira stood, frozen to the spot. He landed on his feet, and his momentum carried him forward a couple of steps before he came to a halt in front of her.

A second later, with a movement that seemed too fast to be possible, he had ripped a leg off the dog and was offering it to her. Mira watched the boy's movements in horror. The aliens had done something to this boy and the result, she knew was terrible and dangerous. And yet she knew she was being offered food. There he was, holding out raw and warm dog flesh for her.

Mira's sense of self preservation was telling her to run away. Whatever this thing was, he was no longer human. He was not safe. But another part of her was telling her not to annoy him, and yet another part – the part that had seen no human to talk to for months – craved the company. And he was just a boy after all. Just a boy like Ben had been 3;

Mira very slowly and carefully reached out for the offered meat and took it. Jay watched her with a quizzical expression the whole time, but when she took the meat he just turned to the remainder of the carcass he was holding and with a horrifying snarl, he bit into it, started tearing the flesh with his teeth, and gulping it down.

Mira fought the urge to throw up. She watched the boy eating for a while and then slowly walked away to retrieve her makeshift bag, and its contents. She added the fresh meat and hoped that dog would taste like chicken when cooked. She had never tried it before.

Pushing down her misgivings, she went back to the boy.

"Jay?"

The boy looked up, his chin and cheeks red with blood, and meat hanging out of his mouth. His hands also blood spattered, where they gripped the remains of the dog.

"We should go. Come with me, we 3; we need to get you cleaned up 3; young man."

Mira did not know why she had called him a young man. He was anything but that now. What was he? not a man. He was a eunuch, so he would never be a man. He was part alien so not really human. The words had almost stuck in her throat, but when they tumbled out they had taken the edge off his alienness. Suddenly she was not so afraid of him, and for his part, Jay seemed to respond. Something softened in his blood spattered expression, and when Mira started to walk home, Jay followed.

A minute later there was a loud crack, and Jay sprawled backwards on the road.

It happened so suddenly that Mira was looking at a large red oozing hole in the boy's chest, and his look of panic and pain, as he lay in the roadway for what felt like several seconds before she realised that the boy had just been shot.

Mira felt blood rush from her face and her stomach tightened in sudden panic. Someone was shooting at them? Not the purples again? Please not the purples.

"No!" She screamed. "No! you can't have him too."

Tears filled her eyes as she stooped to the boy, who was now writhing and coughing on the ground, blood running all down his chest, pouring freely from a vicious hole.

No, not again! Please God, not again.

Mira sobbed as she tried to lift the boy. She sucked in her breath in surprise. She had expected him to weigh a lot with those metal wings on his back, which right now were tangled under him. But in fact he was light. Very light. Lighter than a boy of his age should be even without metal attachments.

Mira picked him up, like a mother picking up her child and held him close to her body. The wings folded close to the body, out of her way, and the boy wrapped his legs and arms around her as she carried him, and started to run, sobbing.

There was a shout. A man's voice.

"Drop him! You don't know what you are doing 3;" There were curses and more souts but Mira was running fast, and she knew these streets. She ducked down an alleyway that would take her in through the back of an abandoned Marks & Spencer store. From there she could find the shopping mall, and then the car parks. She could lose herself there. She would keep him safe this time, she thought to herself.

"I've got you Ben 3;" she panted, "I won't let them hurt you."

Jay moaned and clung on, and Mira kept running.

***

"No daddy, I don't want to 3; Please don't make me 3;"

Mira gently prised the boy's lips open and let water dribble in. The boy swallowed, and then tossed and turned, muttering again in his sleep. Mira was worried. She had no idea how to treat gun shot wounds. She had evaded the pursuit, and found a house that still had its roof to hide out in. She had laid the boy in a bed and he had drifted off into this delirious sleep, while she had hunted for anything that might help.

She had water, and had found sheets and towels too, in an old linen cupboard. The sheets were still clean although they smelled a bit of damp and neglect.

Mira mopped at the boy's wound with a towel. The blood flow was just a trickle now, and she looked at the wound closely as she used some of the water to clean away the matted red blood.

Something was glinting – metallic. She touched it and it moved. She very carefully pulled at it, and the boy moaned and muttered again about his daddy. The thing came away and she looked at it in wonder.

It was a bullet. There was no mistake. It was blunt ended now, but still recognizably bullet shaped, and made from some yellowish metal.

Mira felt relief surge in her. If the bullet was here, then maybe the boy was not too badly hurt. She looked again, and sure enough the hole was not deep. It must have hit a rib. And sure enough, there was the rib. But the rib was not right. The blone was splintered around the hole, and as she looked carefully, she noticed something very odd – the rib appeared to be hollow. She could see two hollow tubes leading away from the bullet hole. No wonder it had shattered.

There was something else though. Some kind of mesh ran around and between the ribs inside his flesh. There seemed to be some damage to the mesh, but this is what must have stopped the bullet.

Mira ran her hands over the boy's uninjured side, and was certain. His entire rib cage was intertwined with this mesh. Something else the Monks had done to him. And yet this mesh may have saved his life. More so, as she looked into the oozing hole in his chest, she saw the mesh creeping and moving and winding around the ends of the ribs, as though it were trying to repair the damage.

As she watched in amazement, the meshed ends extended, joined and then seemed to fuse. There was now a shiny metallic join between the two broken rib ends.

Mira did not know whether to be horrified at the alien technologies that were keeping the boy alive, or relieved that he was not going to die. For a moment she felt that self doubt, that this boy was dangerous – that she should get far away from him. But then he moaned for his daddy again, and Mira remembered Ben. She leaned over and kissed his forehead, tears in her eyes.

"You are going to be okay, Jay. You hear that? Everything is going to be okay."

***

Mira woke with a start. It was after dark, and she had no light with her. She must have drifted off. She was still sitting in the armchair she had carried into the room she had laid Jay in. The boy was still here, breathing slowly and regularly, and no longer thrashing about.

After his body had started mending itself he had slipped into a restful and quiet sleep, and Mira had wandered back to the deserted shopping centre to find him some clothes. He couldn't keep going around naked like that.

The problem was that clothing manufacturers had not designed their wares for children with wings and tail. She had brought home jeans, T shirts, tops, shorts and underwear, but had not found an easy way to get any of that onto the sleeping angel boy. The only thing she had managed to slip on him was a pair of blue speedos, which sat just under the tail, and at least covered his penis and the gap where his balls should have been.

Mira had felt the scrotum. It was tight against his skin, like their had never been balls in there, but a scar down its middle showed otherwise. She thought maybe she felt more of that alien meshwork in there, but she could not be sure.

After washing him as much as possible and dressing him in his speedos, she had sat down and tried to contemplate what she should do next, but exhaustion had taken over, so now here she was in the dark, with a sleeping boy and no idea what she was doing or should do, other than protect him from the purples who had tried to shoot him.

The purples were named for an old song. It was a kind of joke made up by the scavenger people who Mira had fallen in with after the invasion. Mira and her group scavenged the villages, towns and cities for food. The purples preferred to eat the scavengers, which is why they had been named for the Purple People Eater.

One by one the scavengers had vanished. Sometimes it was the purples, sometimes it was illness or infection from some injury, sometimes an accident or wild animals, but eventually it had just been Mira and her little brother.

"I'll always protect you." She had assured Ben.

Mira put her head in her hands and sobbed.

After a few minutes of her quiet grief, she became aware that Jay was no longer in the bed. He was beside the chair. He was reaching out to her, hugging her.

Mira wrapped her hands around the boy and wept.

***

Sunlight streamed through the window, and Mira blinked slowly awake. For a moment she was not sure where she was, and then all the events of the last 24 hours came flooding back.

She looked at the bed. It was empty.

"Jay?"

No answer.

She stood up, looked around the upper floor of the house. No Jay. She went to the top of the stairs and froze.

The door was open.

She had not left it open. Had Jay left her? She ran down the stairs with a sob. Please don't leave me she wanted to shout after the boy.

A loud crack rang out, and this time she recognized it at once for a gun shot. And then another crack. Mira was running out of the doorway and out onto the street. She turned right, following the sound. There was another crack, just around the corner, and then a howling scream, that sent shivers up and down her spine and made her want to stop still and pee her pants. What was that?

Mira forced herself to go on, but carefully now. She edged around the corner. There was someone in the street now. A man. A purple maybe?

He was not moving. There was a rifle on the ground some meters away from the prone body. Mira edged closer, and then covered her mouth and fought the urge to scream.

The man was dying. He should be dead already. He had been eviscerated. Mira could smell a terrible smell from his bowels that were hanging out of his shredded stomach. Blood was foaming around his torn throat, and his mouth was moving, but no words were emerging. The shape of his lips though, she thought just maybe were making the words "my son".

As she watched him, the man twitched, his breath rattling and then he went still.

There was a swish and Mira looked up to see a boy take flight.

"Jay!" she cried out. And then again. "Jay! Jay, wait. Come back."

But he did not come back. The boy rose up and soared away without a backward glance, and Mira dropped to her knees in the roadway, feeling hopeless and so very very alone.

She bowed her head and cried once more.

Afterword

This is not the end of Jay's story, but if you want to hear more of it, I would appreciate an email, message via this feedback form with Auteur - Titel in the subject line. That way I will know what stories to keep writing and which ones to let go.

Whether you contact me or not, thanks for reading. I hope you liked it.