Free Mindlink by Kat Cantrell

appear, she
pushed away thoughts of falling water, her designer bathroom at home and the
size of their cell.
    Natalie stirred but didn’t wake up. Ashley peered out the cell
opening. The alien, Sam, watched her with a hooded expression. She shivered—and
not from the temperature—when their eyes met. A part of her flinched at the
visceral shock of awareness and she flicked it off as exhaustion, extreme duress
and being exposed. She refused— refused —to examine
the other part, the fragment that found him intriguing and not as frightening or
indifferent as his fellow aliens.
    Time to shut that down fast and get some use out of her new
friend. “Do you know what’s going to happen to us?” she asked.
    “We are scheduled to be recycled.”
    She blinked. “Recycled? Like
plastic-churned-up-into-little-bits recycled?”
    “All organic material may be reused for various purposes,” he
said, as if quoting from a textbook.
    Panic fluttered under her ribcage. “When?” she squeaked.
    “This evening we celebrate a religious event, The Festival of
the Ancestors, and no recycling is scheduled. Nothing is more important than
honoring the Ancestors, who guide us in this life from their esteemed place in
the afterlife. We will be taken to the recycling chamber in the morning.”
    Whatever. A bunch of dead aliens weren’t nearly as important as
a dead Ashley. “What happens? How does it work?”
    “The chamber’s robotics are designed to efficiently remove
tissue and organs for use in the research division. Some material is
reconstituted for utilization in common goods and the remainder enriches crops.
It is beneficial for all citizens.”
    Her mind flashed through a scene from Schindler’s List and she shuddered. The recycling chamber
sounded like something she’d prefer to continue imagining instead of seeing in
real life. “You’re not bothered by this? Is there some special way to recycle
organic material and not like, kill it?”
    “The recycling process halts brain activity. I intend to serve
my sentence with dignity. Why would this bother me?” He seemed puzzled as if
being turned into a research project was some big honor.
    “Because you’ll be dead!” she countered. “You know. The
opposite of alive. I have a lot of stuff left to do before I’d go quietly to be
recycled. And what did we do to deserve this? You guys invited us here. We came
in good faith.” She eyed Sam. “By the way, how do you know English so well? You
have more than a passing familiarity with it.”
    “Occupational hazard.”
    She glared at him. “Are you mocking me?” Just because he always
seemed to have the right words on the tip of his tongue didn’t entitle him to
make fun of her script.
    The corners of his mouth turned up slightly but he was far too
severe of a guy to mistake it for a genuine smile. “I do not mock. My position
requires me to know many languages.”
    Mollified, she relaxed her righteous ramrod-straight position.
“What do you do at your job?”
    “Acquisitions. What is your position?”
    “I’m a world-famous actress. I’ve appeared in dozens of films,
and when I return to Earth, I’ll be playing the lead in a film produced by
Renner. Oh. I guess the whole recycling thing is gonna put a huge crimp in
that.” God, it was nearly impossible to stay in character when the very mention
of dying shot sparks of terror through her heart.
    What would Ashley V do now? She started to squeeze out a few
tears but then reconsidered. Aliens probably didn’t cry. She needed to get a
bead on her audience if she wanted to be at all effective.
    “Actress?” He stumbled over the pronunciation as he spit out
the word. “What does this mean?”
    “Oh, I guess you must not have movies here.” She struggled to
find the words to explain movies and Hollywood as an industry to someone who
didn’t understand the concept. “I pretend to be different people in made up
situations and someone films it. Then other people