Qualia

The secret history of the Exodus has not been written. It may never be written. Ghola kill squads. The Etherling invasion of Guam. The High Colony on Mt. Everest, which has systematically removed every trace of human existence from the mountain. These are things we know about. How many backroom deals have taken place between governments, corporations, and extraterrestrials? What pacts shape the world we know? There are too many factions, too many moving parts to see all of it. Yet we can say that slowly, sometimes painfully, the humans of Earth have come to understand that they will never be alone again.
—Anaïs Nineveh, The Exodus: A History, Chapter 5

A shoelace from the shoe that Antonio had stabbed, and which Mel hadn't thrown out, with the expectation that he might need them. A pair of washed-out Quench cans, and two loose tabs. Loose tabs went in the cans, the lace slid through the still-attached tabs, two knots, and . . . Mel held something that looked like a child's attempt at nunchaku. He carefully wrapped it around the inside knob on the front door. Gave it a test poke.

The tabs rattled in the cans as they clanked against each other.

Jordan and Jenny watched Mel do this. They looked a question at him.

"It's an alarm," he said. "I figure if Rachel sleepwalks tonight, she'll come through the door; it'll rattle, maybe one of us will hear it and wake up."

There had to be a thousand better, more high-tech ways to do this. All of which cost money.

The afternoon was spent in household chores. Mel took out the trash, made the bed, and cleaned the bathroom, glad there was nothing that looked like mold, which would have required something stronger than the dish soap they had. Jenny and Jordan put on pants to check out cleaning tools—there was a "library of things" beside the manager's office downstairs with buckets, brooms, and mops. Nothing as fancy as the Cosmic Fill-Up's swifter, but more than sufficient to scour the small apartment.

Mel was trying out new signs from the ASL books on his roommates when there was a knock at the door, a pair of solid thumps. He glanced at Jenny and Jordan, who shrugged. He stared through the spyhole in the door—and spied a black turban and a pair of sunglasses. For a moment, he hesitated, then opened the door.

Detective MacElroy was still in her favorite—perhaps only—trench coat; the suit beneath was brown, with a dark chocolate tie that had a yellowish swirl running through it, forming a three-legged sigil on the knot. Behind her, to Mel's surprise, was Béibhinn, the ghola. She was dressed in a black hoodie, skinny black jeans, and black basketball shoes.

"Mister Arkwright," the detective said. "You've met Miss O'Malley. I have the results of your test. I'd like to share them with you. Privately."

Mel frowned and glanced at his girlfriends.

"You know I'm just going to tell them anyway, right?" He said. "Is there any reason you can't tell us all?"

MacElroy looked past Mel at the two brain slug hosts in their hoodies on the couch. Béibhinn kept her eyes on Mel, the sickly jade in yellow fixed on him as if they had forgotten how to blink.

"Alright," the detective said. "If that's how you'd like to play it."

Mel stepped aside so the brain bat and ghola could enter the room, once more impressed by the sheer physical presence that MacElroy presented. Wide shoulders, wide stance. As if deliberately trying to make herself look bigger. By comparison, the lithe ghola looked almost emaciated, with her narrow, androgynous face and hollow cheeks. He closed the door behind them, to another rattle of cans.

"It's only been what, four days?" Mel said. "I thought DNA tests took at least a week."

MacElroy smiled. Not at Mel. She was staring at Jordan and Jenny, who hadn't moved, though the brain slugs on their necks were both perfectly black, heads and sensory tentacles extended. Béibhinn kept her hands in her front hoodie pocket, keeping a bit of distance from the rest.

"Normally, you would be correct. Except we were not sequencing your DNA. We already have that," the detective said. She turned to look at Mel, eyes hidden by those shades. "You've been a ward of the state for most of your life, Mr. Arkwright. DNA samples were taken at your annual physicals, and processed as a matter of course. The government maintains a large database of such data. Ostensibly, it's for your own benefit: looking for genetic diseases to ensure early diagnosis and treatment. In reality—well, many former occupants of the system commit crimes. While juvenile records are sealed, biometric data is not."

Mel frowned. He didn't enjoy the idea of the government having his information, but he wasn't surprised, either. In an orphanage, privacy was a privilege, not a right, and one that could be restricted at any moment by even low-level government employees who had authority over kids. It had been one of the reasons he'd been keen to find a place of his own.

"So why did you really want my sperm sample?" Mel asked. "And who are 'we'?"

"The answer to your second question is complicated," MacElroy said, and she turned to look back at Jordan and Jenny. "But to answer your first question: taste testing."

The words hit Mel in the chest. He glanced at Jenny and Jordan, but they sat absolutely frozen, faces placid but the veins standing out on their necks. He couldn't see their hands from this angle, but he was sure their bodies were like coiled springs, ready to strike.

"What does that mean, exactly?" Mel asked.

Now it was Béibhinn that spoke.

"We divided your sample and included it as part of a blind taste test against three random human sperm samples and a sperm sample from a transgenic pig that had been spliced with human DNA for the purposes of xenotransplantation," the ghola said. "Six brain slugs not in the Seacouver Hive, two gholas, and two brain bats formed the sample group. What we discovered is that every single participant singled out your sample as particularly—tasty. Although that might not be the word for it."

Mel tried to imagine some masked lab tech carefully dividing his sample up into eyedroppers for alien jizz connoisseurs to sample like fine wines, squeezing out two drops at a time onto their tongues so that they could write their scores down. It should have been a ludicrous image. Maybe it would have been, if it didn't involve his essence.

"A geneticist combed through your gene sequence. No sign of gene tampering—it's likely your parents used embryo screening, but there is no indication of manipulation," MacElroy continued. "Though we cannot entirely rule out epigenetic factors."

Mel frowned. "So, I'm probably not cloned in a lab just to produce super-sperm. So why am I tasty?"

"Human ejaculate," the ghola said. "Consists primarily of sperm cells and seminal fluid. Your volume of seminal fluid is on the upper end of what is expected for a healthy male of your age, and contains the expected combination of minerals, with free testosterone and estradiol levels in the upper percentile. Your sperm cells are notably active, healthy, mutation-free, and likewise in the upper percentile of expected production. This suggests very efficient spermatogenesis, and either high testosterone production or androgen sensitivity. Simply put, your ejaculate is particularly rich."

Jordan and Jenny seemed to relax slightly. None of this was surprising to them.

"Brain slugs do not digest semen, exactly," MacElroy added. "They repurpose them. The process turns the human gametes into hybrid stem cells, able to be rapidly repurposed to build structures that do not trigger human immune response because they are, effectively, human cells, for the most part. It is a fortuitous aspect of human/brain slug anatomical compatibility. While the analogy is imperfect, your ejaculate seems to be especially nutritious. Like whole milk vs. skim milk. Brain slugs and related species tend to prefer thicker samples, as the more sperm cells mean faster replication, but there is a qualia to yours that, when filtered through augmented human chemical receptors, is apparently almost . . ."

"Addictive," The ghola finished. A small tongue slipped out of Béibhinn's mouth, to lack pale, waxy lips. "Not in the sense of a drug like cocaine, but like a very rich chocolate. Or, to continue MacElroy's metaphor, instead of whole milk it's like heavy cream or buttermilk."

Mel frowned, oddly disappointed. A part of him had always hoped he was special, but being compared to a particularly productive cow wasn't exactly what he'd hoped for.

"Okay. I wish you had told me what you were planning beforehand," Mel said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I trusted you enough to give you a sperm sample for the asking, but I get a feeling there's a lot you aren't telling me."

"There is a lot I'm not telling you," MacElroy confirmed. "We ran this test because we want to know why you are particularly compatible with brain slugs, and if that was the result of some particular mutation or genetic modification. To find out what makes you special and if it can be replicated. However, while we can pick out many individual elements of your sample that may contribute to the overall positive taste reception among spermovores, we have not been able to find any unique cause or element."

"Which is why," Béibhinn said. "We'd like another sample. For further tests and analysis."

Mel's frown deepened. He glanced at Jordan and Jenny. They hadn't moved, though their brain slugs had turned grass-green near their heads.

"Can you explain to me," he asked, more to stall and think than anything else. "Who you are working for, or with? Because this doesn't seem like a Seacouver PD kind of request."

Béibhinn smiled. Something shifted, under her hoodie, that wasn't a hand or arm. That made Mel shudder.

"You've probably heard MacElroy talk about 'the Community'; that is our very informal group of aligned extraterrestrial interests. Nothing on paper, you understand. Personal connections, networking. Some of us are members of various corporate, government, and military organizations. We find it useful to pool resources and share data," the ghola said. "When MacElroy investigated the program that placed you here, we believe it triggered a certain amount of interest. Overwatch. Alphabet agencies in Ottawa and D.C. were doing searches for Melville Arkwright. We want to stay ahead of that."

Other Mel, he thought, his mind going to the figure downstairs. Then: They don't know about Other Mel. They think these spy agencies are looking for me. Should I tell them? It's not exactly my secret.

"So you want my sperm because these spy agencies are interested in me?" Mel said. "And what if you do find something?"

"We will share the results." MacElroy was looking at Jordan and Jenny again. Addressing them as representatives of the hive mind, no doubt. "And provide what warning we can, if the interest in Arkwright becomes more active."

"I guess I just don't get why it's so important," Mel admitted.

"Neither do we," Béibhinn admitted. "One 18-year-old successfully living with two brain slug host roommates and producing delicious cum shouldn't attract this level of attention. Yet it has. That suggests someone knows more than we do, or at least suspects they know something we don't. Extraterrestrial existence on this planet is still precarious, Mel. We need all the information advantage we can get. It might be a matter of life or death."

It was the first time since the ghola had entered their apartment that she had used Mel's name. He felt an unexpected heat rise to his cheeks as those rusty jade eyes fixed on him.

He turned to Jordan and Jenny to ask for permission.

Except they were already up and moving towards him. The brain bat, who picked up on the idea, produced an empty vial from her coat and handed it to Jenny as she passed. Mel gave a slightly theatrical sigh as he unbuckled his belt and let his pants slide to his knees.

It looked like they were going to give them a show.

Béibhinn stepped forward as Jordan and Jenny dropped to their haunches, her eyes fixed on the bulge in Mel's new underwear as they tugged it aside. Her face was expressive, lips parted, nostrils flaring as she snuffled the air, the tip of her tongue between her teeth. The detective put up an arm, holding her back.

"Sorry," MacElroy said. "She was in the test group. I told her you probably wouldn't let her help with extraction."

The ghola ignored the brain bat, though she didn't try to push past that arm. Her eyes were locked on Mel's crotch as Jordan pulled the fundoshi aside.

"You know, I've seen the video," Béibhinn said. "But it's much more visceral, seeing it in person."

The brain slugs ignored her. Mel leaned against the wall, cheeks burning, keenly aware of the eyes of the other alien women on him. The brain bat seemed stoic, controlled, her face betraying almost nothing. Yet Mel saw a rivulet of sweat run down the side of her face, as he stood at full mast, Jordan slobbering around the swollen purple head, even as Jenny drew his testes between her own lips.

They took their time. Minutes passed; Mel felt the pressure and anticipation slowly rise inside of him as his lovers held hands and coordinated their efforts for a double-pronged attack on his swollen prick. He felt his breath start to quicken, the heat building inside of him as his imagination collided with pent-up excitement. For some reason, the image of Béibhinn, tongue out, accepting the white drops and those corroded eyes rolling back into their skull to show only the yellows sent an erotic thrill down the back of his legs, ass clenching and staff quivering. She wasn't quite drooling now, but as his eyes flicked up, he saw that she was breathing shallowly through her mouth, gazing at the weeping tip of his meat with the single-minded intensity of a predator.

Even MacElroy wasn't unfazed at the sight. Her lips were drawn in a thin line, and the turban was shifting on its own, the brain slug moving independently of the host. Mel had no idea what he would do if the brain bat came at him suddenly. He pictured its six arms with the flaps between spread wide, and underneath, the hole lined with little teeth that could bite through a human skull. What that could do if it enveloped him . . .

Jenny held the vial up a moment before Mel realized he was bursting. The hot line shot with unexpected speed up the rigid length of him, spasming thick white ropes into the clear tube as Mel's hips pumped the empty air, Jordan's hand stroking the shaft.

He filled the tube and was still cumming.

The last, dribbly spurt Jordan caught in the palm of her hand. She rose, the vial in one hand, the palm with its splatter of seed in the other. Jenny licked carefully at Mel's glans, running her tongue over the slit just to make sure she missed nothing before she tucked it back away in his underwear, which felt like it needed to be re-tied.

Yet Mel was watching Jenny. She handed the vial to MacElroy. Her left hand she held out to the ghola. Béibhinn's gaze was fixed on it. There was something about the gesture that seemed like more than a friendly offering. Though whether this was some brain slug dominance display, or social ritual, Mel had no idea. What he did notice was that Béibhinn bowed their head reluctantly, their tongue scraping the white goo off of Jordan's palm with obvious relish mingled with something that might have been shame or acknowledgement of superiority.

"Thank you," MacElroy said, tucking the vial away. "We'll be in touch."

"One more thing, before you leave," Mel said as he bent down to pull up his pants. "Denis and Aloa. They came to see me. Aloa—did something to me. Without my consent. I don't appreciate that."

MacElroy was quiet a moment. Lips pursed.

"The tasp effect—I assume that's what you describe—leaves no signature. It cannot be proved in a court of law. If you brought charges, it would be your word against theirs; and, frankly, they have the money for lawyers. You do not," the detective said. "However, I will have a word with them, and make it very clear what will happen to them if they try that again. A warning I hope will suffice. They are interested in you too, for their own reasons. They funded the last test."

"Thanks," Mel said, as he buckled up and stepped away from the door. He wasn't sure what he expected her to do. She was, despite all the cloak-and-dagger stuff, despite the brain bat, still a cop. Mel felt again that innate distrust, realizing that she was part of a system that did not inherently have his best interests at heart. Something else he had learned in the orphanage.