Captivate (Manipulate, Book 2)

Chapter 1

Akemi’s brain had only been installed on the alien space station for a few months, but she was already having a blast with it.

For instance, she’d recently realized she could wink her lights at people on Earth when they waved at her. Only a few people knew about it to begin with, but word was getting around. More than a hundred people had now waited on their roof or their front lawn and watched the blip of light sail across the sky, and (wondering if their friends were only having a good laugh at them) they'd waved. And Akemi, who could now process all kinds of satellite data simultaneously, made sure to wink at them in appreciation.

Only weeks ago Akemi had been just another Japanese girl living in the preserved section of New Tokyo, but now she was cutting-edge, alien technology. She’d even begun hosting the first alien fashion blog, as she got to see all the visiting aliens when they came to the station.

The Spo space station had been orbiting Earth for nearly seven years before she ended up with it, of course, but humans hadn’t paid much attention to it until now.

At first, of course, Akemi and the rest of humanity was far too occupied by the cataclysmic explosion of the Large Hadron Collider, and the alien invasion that followed, to give more than a cursory look at the sky - except to note its changing hue as the dust of northern Europe entered the stratosphere.

In the next few years, Akemi and her family had more important things to think about, as the Spo aliens ruthlessly took control of the planet and occasionally (against vigorous outcry) conscripted groups of young people for training on their homeworld. They would have taken Akemi, but she was too ill and they took her sister instead.

Ironically, it was when the humans won their sentience trial and her sister was finally home that Akemi lost her frail body and was installed in the Spo space station.

And sadly, the secret of her new existence was still so little known that no eyes were turned towards her when she streaked across the sky for the final time, blazing with enemy fire.

***

The escape pods burst out of Akemi’s skin like boils, and smoke roiled through her halls, blinding her view from the cameras.

She frantically monitored water systems and airlocks, trying to isolate the fire from the few people still aboard; but so much of the space station had been damaged in the initial explosion that her options were limited. Most of the station’s protections were automatic as well, so there was little to do but watch and wait. The station’s heat censors (which usually would tell her where people were located, by body heat) were overloaded with fire, and told her nothing. The video monitors were obscured by smoke, so all she had were the escape pod records to calculate how many aliens and humans should be left. So far there were 21 of 22 pods away, and nearly 150 souls accounted for. But the two souls she cared about the most were still on the space station. Nat and Sam were trying to get to Akemi before the biobank computer that housed what was left of Akemi’s brain went up in flames. Nat was Akemi’s older sister, and sadly this wasn’t the first time she’d had to risk her life to save her little sister.

Akemi knew they were coming for her because she had a direct link to their computerized glasses, and from the tiny camera embedded in the frame she could see that they were both still stumbling through the smoke filled halls.

She couldn’t see much else, but she knew they were getting near the engine room, where the computer that housed her brain was located. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of Nat’s ashy face when Sam glanced at her, but that was all she could see. Now she heard Sam’s hacking cough over the whine of warping plastic and the wail of alarms.

Are you breathing through your shirt? Stay low.Akemi put the words in the heads up display on Sam's glasses where they transparently overlaid his vision.