You ever been picked last?

None of the extraterrestrial species were built for Earth's gravity, or for exactly Earth's atmosphere. They chose Earth because it was as close as they could get to a habitable world. Yet many species cannot adapt. They remain locked on their ships, unable to leave without protective gear, dependent on external systems. There is nowhere else for them to go. Xenoforming is not an option; return is not an option. They simply don't have the resources or anywhere to go. Earth is their home, and their prison. These are collectively known as the Locked Colonies.
—Anaïs Nineveh, The Exodus: A History, Chapter 2

"Mel. Please. I need it," Rachel begged.

She was lying down, Mel astride her naked back. The bandage was there on the back of her neck, a square of clean white, dirty at the edges.

"Go on," she said, eager and breathless. "Take it off."

His thumb caught the corner of it. Lifted and peeled. It was sticky underneath . . . but there was no scar, no incision. Instead, growing out of the back of her neck, just below the base of her skull, was a feminine slit, the dark labia protuberant, her blonde hair fading into golden curls. It leaked a clear fluid down her neck, over the bumps of her spine.

"Go on," she said, excited. "Put it in."

Mel's erection throbbed. His fingers carefully spread those labia to reveal the wet pink depths . . . and there, buried in the clitoral hood, a smooth, blue-purple sphere that flashed momentarily. Through the opening of the vaginal canal, where Mel expected to catch a glimpse of Rache's cervix, were the wet, pink folds of her brain tissue.

"I don't have a condom," he said.

"I don't care!" Rache moaned. "Just stick it in me! I want to feel it!"

"No," Mel insisted, fighting every urge. "No. I need a condom. I won't do it unprotected, I won't . . ."

Two fingers and a thumb squeezed his big toe. Mel shot up in bed, instantly, terribly awake. His morning wood was painful in its intensity after the exertions of the last day. Rachel sat on the end of the bed, dressed in her brown sweater, the t-shirt with the cartoon cat, and blue jeans.

"Hey," she whispered. "Get dressed. We need to walk."

Dumbly, Mel floundered out of the queen-sized bed. Jordan and Jenny were on the couch, naked, in their little ritual act of shaving. Mel saw the little strings dangling between the legs. Memory came back of last night. Rachel, the blood.

In sync, he thought. Mel had known that the older teens, past puberty, at the orphanage tended to get their periods at the same time, but he hadn't imagined it would happen with Rachel. She wasn't even living with them.

A quick trip to the bathroom, the briefest of brushing of teeth to kill the morning breath, and within eight minutes, Mel was following Rachel out onto the street. His hoodie smelled like Jenny, that undefinable woman-smell mixed with the slightly fishy odor of brain slugs. Rachel's jaw worked, eyes straight ahead. She didn't reach for his hand.

"Are you okay?" he asked, once they reached the end of the block.

"No, I'm not fucking okay," she snapped. "I just . . . I need space from them. I need to talk about it with someone. And you're all I've got."

Mel nodded. He kept pace with her, though he followed where she led. They turned away from his usual route to work, three blocks to a small park he didn't even know was there. Like a splash of forest in the middle of the city, a hard dirt path beneath their feet.

Then Mel saw the graves. Stones half-buried, almost unreadable, faded skulls and angel wings.

"Freeman's Park," she said. "After the American Civil War, some slaves relocated out here and made a little town. They were eventually pushed out, swallowed by the expanding city, but the graves remained, and nobody kept them up, so the trees grew up, and they just declared the whole thing a park. Half-mile trail."

She grabbed his hand then, and her fingers were cold in his palm. The chill of the morning was still hovering over everything, trees dripping, leaves wet with dew.

"Why the fuck did I let a bunch of aliens put something in my fucking head?" Rache said. "Why did my boyfriend tell me to do that?"

She shot a blue-eyed glance at him, and Mel felt a spike of anger and hurt. He wanted to snipe back. The emotions simmered in his chest, but he bit back the bitter retorts that floated through his brain. Mel could see she was hurt, maybe scared. That hit him, even through his own turmoil. Getting angry wouldn't help.

"I'm sorry," Mel said. "I didn't know that would happen. I thought . . . Detective MacElroy thought they were going to give the blue pearl to me. Had no idea they were going to do that to you. Barely knew what a blue pearl was before yesterday. I thought . . . I thought it was what you and they wanted. That I was being supportive. Doing the right thing. I didn't think it through."

Her jaw worked.

"I didn't feel in control of myself," she said, as they passed into a passage where the trees came together overhead to shadow the path. "Like, I told myself we were going to make love when we got back. I had sort of been planning it. Looking forward to it. You know how you build up these sexy fantasies in your mind when you're horny, like how you put together these imaginary feasts when you're hungry?"

Mel's stomach growled a little. He nodded.

"I wanted it to be romantic. Intense. It was going to be me, you, Jenny, and Jordan. I thought the four of us would . . . it would be special. Our first real time. I haven't had dick in forever. And I thought maybe I was ready to go further with Jordan. That would have been . . ." she shook her head. "But once I got this fucking thing in my head, I didn't just want your dick. I needed it. Overriding priority. Like a fish needs water. I don't know what I would have done without it. I mean, do you know how insane that was? Doing it in a bus full of people!?"

She bit her lip, and when she looked at Mel again, they had emerged from the dark passage, and sunlight dappled her hair like patches of gold.

"At the time, I wasn't scared. But now, I am," she said. "Something's changed inside of me, and I can't control it. I don't know what I'll do if that feeling comes over me again."

Mel swallowed. He still felt that edge of bitterness, hurt, and jealousy. Yet as he ran his thumb over the knuckle of Rachel's hand, he found it hard to express that. She was hurting too, and that made his own feelings seem small and petty in comparison.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, feeling stupid for saying it. "Jordan said you needed it. I didn't . . . fight it. I should have argued. Made her explain what was going on better. I shouldn't have taken advantage of you like that."

"Taken advantage?" Rache said. "Mel, if you hadn't stuck it in me, I would have fucking raped you, condom or no condom. I was not in control. Uggh . . ."

She placed her free hand against her stomach and leaned against a tree, squeezing his hand tight, eyes pressed hard shut, face screwed up. Mel wasn't sure what to do, so he moved in and wrapped his other arm around her in an awkward hug that put her head against his shoulder.

"Cramp," she said, when she could talk again. "Never had a period this bad. Never had a period this intense. Had to put in a fresh pad when I woke up because I'd bled through the first one. Plus, and no offense, but I think when we hit that pot hole and the whole bus shook, you stabbed me in the cervix. Felt like it was going to punch right through. I haven't felt like that since my doc sneezed during a pap smear."

"I'm sorry," he apologized again, unable to muster up anything smart or clever to say. Rachel sniffed. Not a sniffle, not a held-back sob, but an actual sniff, her nose buried in his hoodie near the neck, and Mel thought about how much Jenny had been wearing it and how it smelled like her.

"It's not your fault," Rache said, her voice a throaty whisper, accent thickening so some of the words came out like a purr. "That's the really fucked thing about it. I enjoyed it. Yes, it hurt a little, and yes, I'm sore, and I regret that loss of control, and I've got an alien orb in my head and weird dreams about you, but in the moment, I was getting off on it. You know, I'm glad it was you? Because at least I can trust you not to do anything too weird. In the state I was in, you could have done anything to me, and I probably would have rolled with it."

She gave a rueful grin as she slowly straightened up out of the hug and they continued on. The path wound around through the trees. Here and there, a gravestone, half-swallowed by earth or wood, stuck out on the path. They walked around until they came to the end of the half-mile loop, at the end of the block where they had entered.

"Would you have taken the blue pearl?" she asked.

"Yes," Mel said, without hesitation.

"Why?" she asked, not looking at him.

Mel thought about that for a moment before he answered.

"In school," he said. "You ever play one of those games where they pick teams?"

"Sure," Rache said.

"You ever been picked last?" Mel said.

"Once or twice," she said.

"Think about that feeling. Think about living with it. I'm an 18-year-old orphan," Mel told her. "I aged out of the program. That means every year, couples came in looking to adopt a kid, they looked at everyone available, and they didn't pick me. I'm the last kid for the team for my entire life. So I thought . . . I thought maybe this was it. That I was going to be adopted. That I'd have a family."

Mel's vision suddenly got blurry. He hadn't wanted the tears. Rubbed the sleeve of his hoodie over his eyes to soak them up.

"I don't think they did it to hurt me. Think they have a plan, and it involves you. I . . . I don't know if my feelings fit into it at all," Mel said, and now he couldn't keep the bitterness or hurt out of his voice, the slight tone of accusation. "Anastasia knows more than she's telling, too. Between this and the Program, I just feel like I'm a piece on a gameboard. A little plastic dick. Roll the dice and move three spaces ahead. Pay your rent. Fill a condom. Do not pass GO. And I shouldn't be sad about that! It shouldn't hurt! An eighteen-year-old guy gets his balls drained and goes all angsty about it! I'm not . . . I should be grateful. I should be thankful for all I have. I'm stupid lucky."

The words jumbled out, and Mel could feel the rambling thoughts, too fast for him to put them out in the right order.

"I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't want to have sex at all yesterday, but Jordan said it would help and . . . it felt like that's all I'm good for. All I have to contribute."

"Oh, dude," Rachel said, and drew him into a hug. Without being bent over in a period cramp, she was taller than he was, and she pressed Mel's face against her chest, right between her breasts. "You're good for so much more than that. That's why we love you."