The Comfort Women – Nkeiru Okeke.
“Inmate 12345-058, the warden wants to see you, get your ass up and get moving!” the prison guard ordered Imani.
Zuri, who felt really protective of Imani because she was really young and innocent, asked why the warden wanted to see Imani because Imani herself couldn’t think of any reason, her court date wasn’t anytime soon, so what does the warden want with her; they both wondered.
“Ask me one more time, and you’ll see yourself in solitary, probably you’ll learn how to mind your business then. Inmate058, get out of your bunk now!” and off Imani went.
Zuri, who was with some other inmates, noted that the trend had been going on for a while because recently some inmates would be summoned by the warden and thereafter whisked off to god knows where.
Rumours were going on that the same thing happened in another correctional facility before someone blew the whistle and it stopped. Now, it has started all over again.
The problem is that, no one knew where the inmates were being taken to or the criteria for picking inmates that were being taken away.
One of the inmates suggested that it was probably based on inmates that committed heinous crimes that shook the world, “Oh come on!! What exactly is heinous about Imani’s crime, that shithead she killed deserved to be castrated!!” Zuri came to Imani’s defence.
“Was that what really happened? my days!!……I knew she killed her foster father, but I really didn’t think she ripped off his dick. I swear I didn’t think she could hurt a dying fly, let alone chop off the most prized asset of a man” Inmate 66666-000 was shocked to the bone.
“Really?, I find it odd that you’d say that, especially coming from someone that blew her bestfriend’s spinal cord for sleeping with her waste man of a boyfriend….”Zuri continued with the Inmate, she went on to sarcastically mimic her “I swear I didn’t think she could hurt a dying fly”
“You taunt a dying snake, which might yet turn and strike…… .and indeed, it did. That man was vile, he and his sicko of a wife” now Zuri was upset, she still had lingering memories of her own abuse, and matters as such triggered her.
“Come on, it’s not that serious, I just said what I tIhought about Imani” Inmate 66666-000 defended herself which Zuri wasn’t having and so Zuri asked her to leave before things turned physical.
Though inmate000 had gone, the other inmate in Zuri’s cell still wanted to know what happened with Imani and her foster Dad.
“It all started when she was taken away from her biological mother at 3 years of age because of her mother’s drug problem, and she was placed into the foster care of Mr & Mrs Abeni of South African descent, who later went on to adopt her because they didn’t have kids of their own.
According to her, things went well initially until she started to show signs of physical femininity. First, it was her breasts that started to sprout, she said hers were a bit odd looking because they were really perky and bubble-like, with a thin poke, everything in it would come gushing out.
I mean, they were a tight-knit family and didn’t hide anything from each other, even so they had seen themselves a couple of times naked, not purposely though.
However, there was this particular time, Mr Abeni came into her room, apparently, he knocked and when he didn’t hear an answer, he assumed she was already downstairs, probably having breakfast, so, he let himself in, just to find her stark naked, moisturizing her body.
Normally he would cringe and immediately leave with an inundation of “sorry”, but this time he stood and took note of her bubble-like sprouts on her chest, her hairless genitals and other features he just never noticed because she was just his baby Imani………. Imani stood there frozen, wondering why he hadn’t left, then his wife called out before he took slow steps out of the room.
Ladies……things were never the same after then” Zuri concluded.
“How? What actually happened after then” the inmates in her cell wanted to know, at this point they had circled her and listened to her judiciously … mind, soul and body.
“It started with his lingering stare, then he would place her on his lap while they watched their family shows, which oh well was harmless and normal, but then he started to put his fingers inside her vagina…..just constant to and fro movements, shoving in and out, he did it so subtly that his wife who often was there never noticed.
When she tried to back off, his stare…..yes his stare that gives her nightmares up till now……communicated to her to “shut the fuck up”.
“And of course, she summoned up the courage to verbally tell him off, but do you know what he told her?”
They all asked with so much enthusiasm, “What?”
“How do you want me to stop something you enjoy so much”, and of course, Imani was confused as every other child at that age would be……that pervert told her that her body responded so well, gushing out a stream of water….
“So it took him about a week to fully get in and when he eventually did, she would be on a morning and night shift for that shithead!!…….sometimes his oddities would span to him slapping and pulling on her flesh in the act…he had metamorphosed into a full-blown sadist.
“You might be wondering about his wife….yes, she did eventually catch him but as the true narcissist he was, he rationalized everything, and she began to cover his sinful acts….this woman in question was a church secretary…..fucking debilitating set of people!!
Imani sometimes said she felt that Mrs Abeni woman was more terrified of losing her husband than the very act he was than the sick act he was perpetuating on her perpetuating, he was all she had ever known, and now they were getting old….who would want her if she left or told on him…she unwittingly became his accomplice”
One of the inmates then asked, “At what point did she snap?”
“When he wanted to up his sadistic games………her vulva got too loose for him, so grandad wanted to hit it from the back, yes her anus. He actually did, but then she had a bad reaction, she came down with Chlamydia, when that got treated he resumed his escapades with her before, she then came down with syphilis.
I think at that point, she realised that Mr Abeni wouldn’t stop until she dies….like dead…dead.
One day, as usual, he crawled into her bed and told her to bring his dead shrivelled piece of meat to life, as she held it in her hands, she looked at him in his vulnerable state and looked at the knife she placed on her side drawer and wondered why she never fought this man off.
With his leg ajar and his membrum virile in her hands, she gave it three strokes before Mr Abeni felt a sharp pain, then wetness, he looked down, and his severed groin area spewed blood, gushing out in high intensity.
He ran to call for his wife, while Imani sat calmly in her bed, waiting for whatever fate brought to her….. Mrs Abeni was stupefied and as she rushed to get the phone to call the ambulance, it hit her”
What hit her? The Inmates asked.
“What would she tell the paramedics, why did her foster child cut her husband’s penis off, did she know about the abuse…..she was just flustered with reality before she made the heart-drenching decision to watch her husband bleed to death.
Imani still sat in her room and Mrs Abeni in the living room and Mr Abeni dead in the foyer … absolute silence riveting round the house. Reality had dawned and demanded answers but they had none for it.
Mrs Abeni with the last and only bullet in the house blew her brain into a confetti. Imani, hearing the shot, finally got up, leapt over Mrs Abeni’s brain spatters, picked up the phone and called the police and told them she cut her dad’s penis and her mother shot herself.
They didn’t believe her and she didn’t bother, moreover, she feels safer in the four walls of a correctional facility….she was moved from Juvi detention to the adult facility when she clocked 18, she’s serving a life sentence for the death of her both parents.
It’s sad, but that’s what it is” Zuri retorted before Imani came back to the cell.
Imani iappeared really hostile and a bit roughened up with her hair over her face after a visit to see the Warden. The prison guard ordered her to get her stuff which she did in dead silence, when she picked the very last of her stuff she turned to leave before she was stopped by Zuri.
Imani raised her head to look at Zuri and a crippling fear came over Zuri, Imani was dead in the eyes….she was gone, she was not there any more…….she looked like someone had taken over her body.
Zuri quickly backed up and gave way for Imani to leave, and that was the last time she or the other inmates ever saw Imani.
Over the months four inmates were taken, never to be seen again, this really disturbed Zuri…she wondered where they were taken to or the criteria for picking these inmates. They took both old, young, tall, short, kinky hair, straight hair, however she was more worried about Imani.
That poor girl, she never had rest…..in the silence of the cell which she now occupied alone she whispered, “Imani, where are you? I hope you’re okay?” and then she was interrupted in her soliloquy.
Inmate 45673-008, rushed into Zuri’s cell with so much panting under her breath as she exclaimed how she had figured everything out……” What the hell have you figured out?” Zuri couldn’t make out what she was saying, because the inmate had a slobbered speech.
The inmate had figured out the pattern, better still the criteria for selection “they take lifers that have been forgotten” the inmate managed to say under her slobbered speech, “how do you mean forgotten?”
She tried making the connection clear to Zuri, it’s not a matter of heinous crime but rather an inmate serving a life sentence and probably hadn’t been visited for at least 3 years, hence the forgotten part. Their families must have cut ties with them or the surviving family member that cared could have probably passed away, the fact remains that no one would care if they went missing or died in prison.
“Regardless, that seems risky for the prison management to do…..how about if a family member suddenly repents and wants to renew ties, what then happens?. It didn’t make any logical sense to Zuri, it’s a state-owned facility and the state is responsible for them.
“Well, they couldn’t care less when you’re alive, or haven’t you ever wondered that the state could probably be involved in this mess? They can easily wipe your record or forge your death certificate and say you’ve passed” the inmate tried reasoning with Zuri.
Earlier, the inmates had set up this mini investigation team within the prison, and they went around asking questions and gathering information, they exchanged information written on ripped clothes.
A guard who Zuri paid cash for more information, passed one of the ripped clothes to Zuri, and it read “Rebooted” and he signalled for her to come over to a secluded area so he could tell her more away from prying ears.
“What exactly do you mean by rebooted…… I paid so much money for you to just give me that, I need more than a single word.
“Fine!! So, when I was eavesdropping I could just get bits and pieces of their conversation” the guard went on to explain to her.
“Whose conversation?” was Zuri’s retort. “The warden and some men in uniform, they said stuff like reboot them here, put the chip in, it’s a close match…….. I was a bit far from them, so their ramblings were a bit incoherent….but the last inmate they took, I saw when she was leaving with the men in uniform, and she wasn’t in there…..she actually looked rebooted…….but more importantly I became curious and wondered how they cover up for these missing inmates and so, I checked her records, and it read inmate committed suicide “self-harm to her wrist and bleed to death”, I advise you and your cohorts to stop snooping around, because there is some serious stuff going on here” the guard tried dismissing Zuri before they get caught.
“Do you think they are operating some organ-harvesting ring, or some sick experiment……that’s true, an inmate said there is a selection criterion for these victims…what do you think?” Zuri needed more information.
“What is it to you? You’re alive, that should be all that matters to you in this prison……just stay alive and stay clear before you become next” and the guard left her to continue in her deep thoughts.
Zuri tried to put everything together, the criteria, the forgery by the prison for cause of death, and she paused for a while. Why do they have to forge a cause of death, does it mean the person actually dies…..what’s going on?” These open questions really bothered Zuri.
“The criteria”….then it hit her, it was just a matter of time before she would be next. She perfectly fits the assumed requirement for their sick experiment, whatever it is, because she is serving a life sentence.
Zuri had been in prison for over 6 years, she was arrested when she went for a robbery in order to buy some medications for her mother, with whom she lived in penury. As the teller packed stashes of cash into the bag she provided, some kids rushed in boisterously and this startled Zuri, causing her to click on the trigger and the gun went off, blowing off the face of the teller. Her mother had since died, and so she had no one.
When that realization dawned on her, it hit her so badly that she sank to the floor and wondered what they would do to her when it got to her turn.
When she got out of the secluded area, the inmate with a slobbered speech ran to give Zuri more information, which Zuri was already knowledgeable of based on her chat with the guard.
“Someone checked the record of one of the inmates that was taken away, it was written “passed as a result of prison violence”, can you imagine!! Nina, who couldn’t even fight to save herself, died of a prison brawl. Something is fishy man!, we have to stay alert” and off went Inmate008, she prided herself in the little detective role she was given, and she took it seriously.
Zuri kept on playing everything in her head, and the more she did, the more it made her paranoid…she couldn’t sleep, and she had made herself a small weapon using her toothbrush. She had smoothened the ends of her toothbrush to give a sharp, pointed end that could pierce right through. She would rather go down fighting than to be used for some sick shit.
The prison went further to experience more inmates leaving and never returning, however, Zuri had taken the guard’s advice and stayed clear from the espionage and hoped they wouldn’t remember her even though she perfectly fitted the mould. Her heart went out to Imani now and then, she really felt sorry for the poor baby.
Not too long, Zuri would be given the opportunity to reunite with Imani whom she cared so much for, unfortunately for her the guard she paid money for information called her and gave her the
dreaded news…..” Zuri, the warden wants to see you”, everyone knew what that meant for her and looked at her with pity in their eyes.
She scanned her environment and tried to check the possibility of running, but the odds were slim, the guards told her not to bother but come willingly with them and so with her tiny weapon tucked inside her bra she proceeded to follow them.
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“You know Imani has asked and begged to see you for some time now, it appears you’ve become a mother figure to her. So, out of the goodness of my heart I’ve decided to transfer you to the same section as her before she dies of the lathe lck of your adorning motherly love” the warden told Zuri.
“You must be joking,” Zuri told the warden under her breath. The warden didn’t care for any and no one, he was a trifling sick pervert. It was just a gut feeling Zuri had about him, in tin the way he smiled, his breath, his whole demeanour exuded psycho, no streak of kindness resided in that pot-bellied fellow.
Zuri was going to call off his bluff. “Warden, I’m in no mood to receive any form of goodness from you, I ain’t going nowhere” Zuri further reiterated.
At this point the warden came so close to Zuri that she could smell the garlic in his breath when he asked “What did you say?”. Zuri knew either way she was going down, it was all over, so she might as well go down a tough nut.
She spat on the warden’s face and backed off from the guards before bringing out her makeshift artillery from her bra and repeated, “I said I ain’t going nowhere!! You think you’re going to use me for your sick experiment. I know what you’ve been up to, you devil….flee away from me or go down with me.
“You want to sell my kidney to your sick rich friends or trade me to one of them sex farms…..tell me warden, what exactly are you doing with all these missing inmates? You’re definitely not transferring them to some boujee ass facility…….be talking about Imani missing me. The question is, is she still fucking alive!!!?
When the warden had heard enough of her whimpering he signalled for the special military men who were in another room to come in, they seemed fierce and ready to gain control over her. She flung her piece sideways to chew them away, but the more she swung at them, the more they came closer.
They enclosed her sideways, but she still persisted, swinging her piece until she slashed one of them on the cheeks, which really upset him.
He violently grabbed her and pinned her to the ground “We have a feisty one here warden, I think we might insert the chip in her before taking to the theatre to complete the procedure” the man who had pinned her to the ground signalled for the other military guy to bring the chip which seemed to be in a syringe to be injected in her.
“Come over here, hold her head still, she needs to remain still, so the chip rests directly on her frontal lobe, any error and the specimen is useless” as everyone made attempt to pin her down, Zuri fought with all her might and power, still quacking and shaking, trying to make sure her specimen becomes useless.
Finally, they managed to keep her still for a sec but on trying to insert the chip she managed to shake, but the chip was already in. The men watched her, they weren’t sure if the chip was directly placed on her frontal lobe because she shook the moment it was being put. `They scanned her head and saw it was between her frontal lobe and her parietal lobe.
They murmured amongst themselves wondering if that fact could reduce the control over the specimen, they had never been in this situation before, usually the inmate is carried away before the chip is inserted……the inmates usually never see it coming.
So, they decided to observe her for a while….she appeared to be adjusting well to the chip before she suddenly started to froth at the mouth and convulse at the same time. They tried stabilizing her, which worked for a moment…….but it appeared she had stopped breathing.
They all thought she had been deceased, so they ordered to have a body incinerated because they needed the specimen alive. As the guards advanced to carry her body away, she robotically stood up. This shocked them, they looked at her and her at them.
They wondered whether it’s because of how the chip was placed that she reacted badly, so they decided to try her. The men had a notepad which was connected to the chip in her brain. They use the notepads to give instructions to the chips, which then transmits these instructions to the brain and subsequently the specimen carries it out.
“Command her to strip” the warden told the men and they did. Gently, Zuri unbuttoned her prison jumper, removed her panties, and her bra until she was stark naked.
Zuri felt like she was out of her body, more like she was trapped in a dark hollow with a tiny window where she could peep and see what they were doing to her. She tried taking control over her body, but she was too weak, with every clothing item she took off, she summoned her strength, but the chip was in total control.
She still remained somewhat grateful because she had some level of consciousness, she could see what was going on, she could see the faces of the perverse men as they ogled at her nakedness, that of the warden annoyed her the most, especially being the fact he would soon pimp one of them out again.
The warden felt a bit uneasy with this particular specimen, so he probed them further to be sure that nothing came back to bite him in the ass. They reassured him that every form of consciousness is completely gone, and she was longer there nor could she understand or ever remember any of this or what is yet to come, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case because of the mispositioned chip.
They went ahead to anaesthetise her and perform the remaining procedure on her.
The procedure included removing her stomach and replacing it with a completely new AI powered stomach that has the ability to sustain the body without needing food or liquid of any kind, they removed her uterus so she won’t be able to get pregnant or have periods and the most important of all, they removed her heart and replaced it with an AI powered heart that can be switched on or off, that can also recycle blood and keep the other organs functioning to give the feel and touch of a normal woman.
So, she could produce saliva in her mouth, bleed when cut, discharge and whatnot, but that would come from the liquid composition already maintained in her body up until her transformation, the AI heart just keeps on recycling it and the stomach purifies what needs to be purified.
They had created an artificial woman using a combination of both real and artificial parts, basically bits and pieces of Zuri together with bits and pieces of AI powered devices that can be controlled and switched off at any point in time.
Finally, it was time to activate the new Zuri, from the notepad they switched her on, but when she woke up, Zuri couldn’t feel herself. She felt like a toddler placed in the middle of an empty stadium, she felt so empty, with a very little piece alive.
This was the case until they activated her, which really felt good, she felt like a new human, she could feel the follicle of her hair down to her very phalanges, she tried sweeping her fingers through her hair and she couldn’t before it dawned on her that her earlier panorama with the warden wasn’t a nightmare but reality.
The men all stood and admired their art, they even gave her sagging breast a lift and also gave her lip fillers……she couldn’t have looked any prettier, and the one time she did, it was at the mercy of the men that clicked on a notepad which made do things against her wish.
They got her dressed and boarded her on a spaceship, and up they went.
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Zuri had never been on a spaceship before and, though she was scared, didn’t have the ability to show it because she didn’t control herself.
Now, she was on a “god who knows” space deck where she was put in a freezer room with the other specimen, they all seemed dazed, moping and gaping without saying a word.
She recognised most of them from the prison, she wondered what they were actually doing with them, she couldn’t speak either could they, she wondered whether they were still in there, like her but just didn’t have control.
Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when they brought in a freshly stitched Inmate376, Zuri was shocked to the bone, they always graded the inmate as one of the top three prettiest inmates, the warden as well as the guards were mesmerized with her.
But now, she looked like a scrap, she had a long laceration from her genital up to her rib cage which was recently stitched. They dumped her on the floor naked like she was some slab of meat in an abattoir.
The attendant in a clinical white overall jumpsuit asked his colleague what happened with the specimen, “ooh, she got roughened up badly, mahn! These dudes get sicker with their oddities every day. The Chief General controls this specimen, he had messed the shit out of the specimen and got bored, more like curious, and decided to tear her open to see how she was actually built……it’s crazy man, these dudes need real women not this robot shit” the attendant told him.
They got a beep which asked them to bring Zuri for download and for sampling by her soon-to-be controller.
They put Zuri on a flat metallic slab, where they put a scanner-like object over her head, while the object scanned through her face, it was able to imprint instructions of her controller into the chip in her brain.
It basically contained a briefing of what the specimens are used for and how the facility it’s being operated. They referred to all of them collectively as Project-X, and the project came about when the air force detected life somewhere outside space.
They rummaged outside space until they came across some odd looking aliens. Before they could get to it, two out of the three had gone, and the only one left seemed not to be frightened.
They approached it, and it looked at them somewhat dismayed trying to figure out what they were, and the military men were trying to figure out what it was as well. After long stares, it proceeded to turn its back to leave but “man, being an ever-curious being”, decided to take it hostage.
More like they made gesticulations for it to follow them back to the spaceship and it willingly did to their surprise. In the spaceship, the creature which looked like every typical alien was locked in a tube that mimicked the temperature and air of “out of space” in order for it to survive.
They took samples and samples, all in a bid to understand the treasures the creature possesses, if any. They realized that when injected into humans, the specimen becomes extremely strong for a time before it explodes into a confetti, and of course, as of that time they used male prisoners.
The goal then became to extract that power but in a form that does not explode within minutes, they tried fertilization, bringing a female human egg and the alien’s sperm, and it worked for a time before exploding.
They had to bring in a top expert who was able to tell them that the explosion is caused because the temperature didn’t mimic that of the alien, everything from the alien can only survive given the same condition as the alien, but the nut to crack here also was that anything human can not survive in the air or temperature of the alien.
So, they had to go back to the drawing board to figure out the temperature to create to sustain both specimens, and all the while the alien kept its eye on the female officer that worked on the research.
They joked at first that it had a thing for her, until it wasn’t a joke. When she came close to the alien’s tube, for the very first time it brought out its very odd-looking phallus in an attempt to mate, the phallus webbed out but retracted when it couldn’t mate with the officer.
It was a discovery they saw for the first time, and they wondered if they actually brought it to a woman to mate with, a woman who must have been engineered to withstand the temperature, whether that would work. The woman could get pregnant and actually give birth to a more adaptable creature, a vessel that has so much strength.
They saw how that would be the greatest biotech weapon they would ever create, a human-alien army, and that’s how Project-X began. They would get female prison lifers, engineer them and throw them into the tube for the alien to mate with.
The very first time, when they put an engineered woman in there, at first the alien advanced towards her, walked around her to mark its territory, then went to a corner and just sat.
The alien refused to mate with the woman, subsequently, they brought several women, at some point they tried bringing a man, probably it fancied men, but still the alien refused. It kept its eyes on the female research officer, it wanted her. They eventually realized that the alien, just like every human man, wasn’t just attracted to the specimens they brought to it, but rather the woman officer.
The alien had to have some feelings for the specimen before it felt compelled to unveil its phallus. However, the bone in the neck is the fact that the female officer is the one in charge of the research, and so is one of them, which meant they couldn’t use her.
So, they embarked on sampling different specimens for the alien, hoping that one day it would get attracted to one of them, that’s what led to all the missing inmates.
However, while the alien was busy rejecting the specimen, the officers decided to treat themselves to the rejected cohort. They passed them around, but the specimens available weren’t enough, so aside from getting a bride-for-hire for the alien, the researchers were equally tasked with getting the same for the officers on board to reduce the piled-up sexual tension in the spaceship.
Rumour had it that they had finally found a specimen that the alien felt attracted to, she was in the tube with it and was already pregnant. They said the alien was very territorial about the specimen and wouldn’t allow any of the officers to extract a sample from it.
The prisoners they brought in, after then, were for the pleasure of the officers. Zuri was brought in for one of the researchers, “Jia Chang”.
After the briefing and the imprinting was done, they sent her off to Jia Chang’s cubicle. There he stood, waiting for his reward. They handed the notepad to him which was to be used to control the chip in her head, and they left him to his business.
Zuri, who was earlier overwhelmed with fear, seemed less petrified after realizing the alien had found a mate already, she felt sorry for whoever the mate was and wondered where Imani was in all of this.
Jia Chang’s room was as pristine as the sky, not even a strand of hair could be seen to be out of place, it was abnormally clean, she knew something was wrong when he began to undo her clothes piece by piece. For each piece of cloth on her that he removed, he folded neatly and kept on a chair, until he had taken off the very last one.
He stood her in front of him and just kept on staring at her, ogling and ogling before he laid her down in the bed precisely on her stomach with her face down. He spread her legs apart and got
himself naked, climbed on top of her and just like a forklift trying to lift a load, he gently slid in until his forklift was in position, and he let out a loud groan.
Zuri hoped that she wouldn’t feel the pain, but she did. Though she had no control, she felt every sensation borne by the fast thrusting of the coitus-starved researcher. As he continued he reached for the notepad and activated “squirting”, lo and behold she squirted like a tap, all while in the position of a forklift trying to lift a load.
When he was done, his pristine cubicle was marred with DNA and spittle, it was filthy, that’s when it dawned on Zuri that Jia’s fetish is to make something so pure, clean and unblemished, to be filthy and ugly.
He pinched a chunk of her buttocks which was as smooth as that of a baby, he then slapped it before bringing out a knife to mar something so smooth and fresh. He carved his name on her buttocks, “Jia Chang” before letting her back to her cold room.
The researcher returned to the research room as if nothing happened, his male colleague who knew Jia’s specimen had arrived and that he had already had his moment with it teased him “You perv, I’m sure your pristine room is all vile and drenching with cunt fluid….psycho!! “ And they both laughed.
“You know, I always wondered what those females were like or who they were before they became a specimen, it would be nice to google them up to see what they did that ended them here……you get what I mean?” Jia’s colleague told him.
Jia had a smirk on his face and his colleague couldn’t make out exactly what that was for, he eventually realized that Jia tipped the guys that recruited the specimen for extra information on his specimen, so Jia knew who Zuri was before she became a specimen “You douchebag!!, how did you make them tell you about her, come on spill the tea, who was she?” his colleague desperately wanted to know.
All this banter happened while they were in the research room, at that moment the alien and his pregnant specimen appeared to be asleep, it was all quiet as it was just the both of them on the shift for that night.
Jia went ahead to tell his colleague who Zuri was and how she blew off the head of the shop attendant when she went to rob.
“Oh well, she won’t be missing much, she already had a miserable life, nothing so different from the misery she’s living in currently, just a continuation of it in some weird-ass body. Did they ever tell you what her name was?” his colleague ended up asking
“Yes, I think they said her name was Zuri” the moment Jia told his colleague Zuri’s name, the alien jerked up and punched through the glass of its tube, which left a big dent.
They had never seen the alien react so violently, it looked sternly at them retracted back and looked at his pregnant mate, though she was turned off, she was still activated more like hibernating.
The alien made some clicking sounds as if it was communicating with its hibernating mate, it then let out a deep exhale that was evidently heard by both of them, before returning to his position, all these panoramas happened without the alien taking its gaze off the researchers.
The researchers were terrified, at first they had wanted to press the alarm to call in security, but they hesitated when they saw it had calmed down.
Jia, noticed the alien disposition became intense when he mentioned Zuri’s name, he then slowly walked close to the dented glass, touched it, then lingered on a bit looking at the hibernating specimen.
“What the fuck are you doing, get away from there before you get it all riled up again” his colleague was in no mood for any incident but Jia still stood observing everything, then Jia proceeded to mention the name Zuri to the hearing of the alien.
The alien looked at Jia and let out something that appeared to be a smile….it was a very odd facial expression they had never observed on the alien….to Jia, it seemed like a smile. And the alien made some clicking sounds towards his hibernating mate, which led to a leg twitch by the specimen, like a form of acknowledgement of what the alien said.
That was meant to be impossible, the specimen was turned off, how on earth could it twitch “Did you see that” Jia asked his colleague.
“What?, I didn’t see anything, but I can sure see that the alien is riled up, and you should leave it the hell alone” his colleague answered
“So, you didn’t see the specimen twitched its leg?” Jia asked again. “That’s not possible Jia, it’s turned off, drop it Jia!!” and the colleague went on to continue some sample testing.
Jia gave the alien a deep look and took a mental note of what he saw before dropping it.
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Shortly after Zuri had got back to the cold room, the guys in the white jumpsuit came in to take away Inmate376, the one that was recently stitched up. One of the guys asked the other guy, “What are we prepping her for again…..adreno what?”
“Adrenochrome” the other guy responded.
Zuri was shocked when she heard what they were about to do to Inmate376. She knew what adrenochrome meant and how it’s done. There was an inmate she met that delighted in conspiracy theories and told her about adrenochrome, how they often used children for it.
The inmate told her that Hollywood elites run a massive child trafficking ring to drain children’s blood and harvest the chemical “adrenochrome” to stay young, though Zuri read otherwise of how adrenochrome was basically the oxidation of adrenaline (epinephrine), which in some cases causes schizophrenia, she still believed the conspiracy theory regardless.
Zuri, being in a spaceship where she has been engineered to be an AI prostitute, knew too well. The story about the missing inmates started out as a conspiracy and here she was living in that conspiracy…..so yeah, to her there was never smoke without fire…..so the conspiracy about adrenochrome is real and Inmate376 was about to experience hell on earth.
The attendants talked about how they had never seen one being done but heard they had to get the person to the peak of fear, only then, could they extract the purest form of blood and adrenaline for the lushest youthful glow.
Inmate376 was whisked away and was subsequently discarded never to be seen again, how she was discarded was something Zuri hoped would never happen to her, but you’d never know, after you’ve been used up this much, your fate probably rests on adrenochrome” Zuri thought.
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The next day, an incident report was made by Jia and his colleague to other colleagues and their superiors. They replayed the recording to see what exactly triggered the alien to react violently, and they concluded it was the temperature in the alien’s tube, which was unusually dense.
This irked Jia so much, no one was listening to him, he knew that it had something to do with Zuri. While they babbled and debated, the alien kept a close stare at Jia. Jia had come to understand that the alien was far more intelligent than they imagined, for all he knew the alien could be studying them and not them studying it.
He gave a quick stare at the alien and saw that it had a smirk on its face, Jia let out a grunt and left to retire for the day and get some rest before his next night shift.
When he got to his pristine room, he rang for Zuri, and after his usual ritual of him staring and ogling at her nakedness, he put her in the usual position but instead of him making his entrance like a forklift as he often does, he just laid his body on top of hers and whispered in her ears “What do you have with the alien?”
Zuri was surprised at that question, but of course she couldn’t react to it. Jia got really agitated, knowing fully well Zuri couldn’t answer him, but for some reason he felt that she was in there, that she could hear him.
Jia was frustrated, he wanted answers to the funny events that have been transpiring. He got up and sat down and just stared at Zuri who was placed on her stomach in the bed, then a sick idea flashed through his mind.
He climbed back on her and then inserted his fist in her and told her if she didn’t speak, he would stretch his hands further down and pluck out her heart, and they would have no option than to send her for adrenochrome. Zuri felt this overwhelming fear hearing what Jia had told her, she imagined them doing horrible things to extract her purest blood.
She tried channeling in her inner strength to speak, to move, to do something! But she couldn’t. She closed her eyes and waited for fate to be meted on her, but then she heard a voice, a voice that wasn’t Jia’s.
The voice was inside of her, it spoke like it was in the same body as hers, it said that she would be let out today and that Imani refused to leave without her, so it would come and take her before they leave. At that moment, she somewhat gave into the voice and pleaded with it to save her if it ever wants to take her as a functioning specimen.
As she asked, so was it done. Before Jia could extend his short phalanges to displace her AI powered heart, a wave of shock descended on Jia, and he fell on his back and cracked a rib.
He was petrified, he called for the attendants to take Zuri away immediately, something was certainly wrong, and he wasn’t going to wait around to see it unveil, he subsequently went to the clinic and demanded he be taken back to earth for adequate medical care, but his request was denied. He was told that a specialist doctor was to come a day after tomorrow for a surgery for one of the officers, and Jia could get treated by the same doctor as well, hence they wouldn’t need to send him to earth.
His situation was then managed, pending when the doctor came. To Jia that wasn’t the answer he wanted but hoped in his mind that before the alien would have had enough of humankind stupidity he, Jia would have been far gone.
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Later that night, during his shift Jia took his time to replay almost all the recordings in the research room and saw how the alien had been secretly communicating with his mate, he saw all the leg twitching acknowledging the communication by the mate.
Although there were no clicking sounds made out loud by the alien, the specimen twitched its legs as if to respond to what the alien had told it. How then were they communicating if they weren’t saying anything verbally?
It dawned on Jia that these aliens were very advanced, so advanced that their communication was done by telepathy. The alien communicated via mind transmissions, it had literally hacked into the brain box/chip of the specimen and reconfigured it, his mate “Imani” was after all in there.
She told him about her life, her miserable life up until when she was taken for this sick experiment, the alien somewhat had pity for her which transcended to affection which eventually spawned into love.
At first, it was the alien colony setting a hoax for mankind to take one of them into its world so they could get the opportunity to study mankind and exchange resources so that both worlds can become better.
When the hoax was set into motion and the alien was in mankind’s spaceship. The alien started to read their minds and saw how evil mankind is and how they were all about taking from the alien to create weapons of mass destruction…..a biotech army.
It transmitted this information to the alien head, who told it not to abort the mission but remain calm and continue to allow mankind to experiment.
The alien colony bought into the idea of a biotech specimen, but not an army. So, they waited until their alien agent got mankind(Imani) pregnant, until then was it allowed to end the mission and bring mankind’s prodigy to their world. But in the process, the alien agent became smitten with mankind specimen “Imani” and the only request she made of him was that it brings Zuri along with them.
So, the alien agent manipulated the researcher’s mind “Jia Chang” to make a request that matches the description of Zuri and once she was brought, the alien agent started to prep to go back with both his mate(Imani) and Zuri.
The alien agent, now ready to end the mission, made its whole ploy known to Jia through mind transmissions. Jia tried running to press the alarm, but the alien was out of the tube already and stopped him through his mind.
The alien was AI itself, adaptable, advanced and never needed any special tube to survive, it just played along, learning and absorbing knowledge from mankind.
Jia also realized that the alien is mankind in a thousand years to come, so in the course of mankind experimenting with pieces of AI, mankind would at some point completely
metamorphose into AI in the future, where notepads won’t be needed to give instructions, but rather the mind would radiate transmissions.
The alien took over Jia’s mind, and it instructed Jia to call for Zuri and bring her to the research room, when that was done, it removed the chips in the heads of both Imani and Zuri, though they were still AI powered they now had control over themselves once the chip had been taken off. They immediately gave themselves a very tight hug, like they had been reunited in the afterlife.
They unexpectedly bore the gift of telepathy themselves, the alien spoke to them, briefing them of the escape plan without altering a word but through mind transmissions and they replied.
Jia, who was still under the mind control of the alien, saw how the alien shut down the whole experiment, disposing of certain chemicals appropriately. Jia felt so foolish, all the while the alien was studying them, it knew all the passcodes, it knew all the procedures and protocols, there was no way they could match the intelligence of the alien.
After the alien was done wiping every form of existence of the experiment, it instructed Jia that once they leave the spaceship, he should click on the “detonate” button to blow up the spaceship and everyone in there into crisp ashes.
When the alien and his jewels were outside the spaceship, they took one last look at the spaceship just like “Lot and his daughters in the bible” before Jia pressed the detonate button and everything was blown away like it never existed.
The alien, Imani and Zuri were gone, never to be seen again but in the future.
Nkeiru Okeke is a polymath artist, blending poetry, sci-fi writing, surreal theatre, and forensic accounting into a captivating journey. Her poetry delves into human complexities, exploring themes of identity and social justice with emotive depth. Through speculative narratives, she transports readers to futuristic worlds, intertwining technology and humanity with creativity and insight. As a surreal Thespian, her performances challenge conventions, inviting audiences into dreamlike realms where reality and imagination merge.
About the author.
Nkeiru is a multidisciplinary artiste, a wonder to behold on stage. Her expertise informs her creative process, adding depth to her understanding of the human condition. Nkeiru also shares her thoughts and ideas on Medium, providing a platform to engage with her writings and perspectives. Through her diverse talents and passions, Nkeiru Okeke invites audiences to explore the vast landscape of human experience, where imagination knows no bounds.