Indignation

They're here to take back what I'd stolen from them, but I'm not giving it back without a fight. There are three of them, chasing me across rooftops. They have more speed and resilience than I do, and they're closing in quickly. In our earlier fight, they'd managed to gash open my arm with one of their flying blade disks and the wound hasn't stopped bleeding. My chest burns and my knees ache from the chase, but I refuse to lie down and die. If these monsters want their mask back, I'll damn well make them work for it.

I've been doing this stupid vigilante shtick now for almost eight years and I've gotten quite good at it. I mean, I was good at it before, but this fancy mask of theirs makes my job infinitely easier. With it, I can see x-rays of bodies to see where they're hurt or sick, spot heat signatures of people hiding from me; I can do basic bio-scans, tell which people are carrying what guns and even record people's voices for later use. All this and I know there are still some functions on it I haven't discovered yet.

The best part is that the mask makes me look scary as shit. When your whole job is to scare the shit out of criminals, that's a very good thing. So you have to understand why I'm a bit reluctant to simply hand it back, maybe shrug and pop a few mentos in my mouth and hope they laugh it off. Or maybe I could reason with them, assuming they could even understand me? Like, "sorry your buddy died here on our big shithole of a planet, but if it makes you feel better, I didn't kill him. I just watched him get blown into a billion little pieces and ran off with his awesome mask. No hard feelings, right?"

Sure, that'll work out real well.

That was a very interesting day, the hot summer day that ET from Hell landed on this berg. That was the day the state was supposed to execute the super criminal, Rhombus. I know because I was sitting there in the assembled crowd to watch. I'd been busting his balls for so long that I admit to being a bit sad it would all come to an end… until I remembered how many innocent people he slaughtered for fun. They strapped him into the gas chamber; it filled with dense green smoke until you couldn't see the pathetic, withered man anymore. And when the smoke cleared away, a chorus of gasps erupted from us when we realized the chair was empty, and Rhombus was gone.

I'll never know how the fuck he pulled that off. When I found him later that night, I asked very politely with both fists for him to let me in on that little secret, but all he did was laugh, blood pouring from his crooked, broken mouth. He called me a bitch. He said he didn't have to see my face to know I was scared. He said that even if I bring him in again, I'll still be scared, and I always will. It made me so goddamn pissed off that for the first time since I donned these tights, I lost control. I beat him over and over, until he stopped moving, and then I beat him some more.

I didn't mean to kill him, but the alien didn't know that. The creature most likely didn't understand thing one about the complexities and frailties of human nature. It was just a hunter looking for worthy prey, and I was a filet mignon amongst rows of low-grade chopped hamburger and tofurkey. In hindsight, I see now that Rhombus planned the whole thing. He thought I was worthy too; the only one worthy enough to kill him. And so I played into his plan like a good little pawn and gave him the honorable death he truly believed he deserved, rather than being put down like the rabid dog he was.

So the hunter got a hard on when it watched me beat a man to death with my bare hands. Pursued me for hours, putting countless lives in danger and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage. The police got involved, but they couldn't keep up, even in their copters. Then they called in the National Guard and that's when it really hit the fan and splattered.

It was one tough son of a bitch, I'll give it that, but once I was able to damage it's cloaking device, the LAW missiles started flying, and my ass ran for cover. Sadly, it was all downhill from there. But hey- I got a shiny new mask out of the deal, didn't I? Which brings us back to the Three Stooges over here that came looking to reclaim it from me.

Luckily for me, I have the home field advantage. They may be stronger, faster and blessed with more endurance, but the yard I just leapt into has a really big Rotweiler that will distract the hell out of them and buy me a few seconds to maybe put some more distance between us. In the time it takes for the dog to get up out of her house, I'm already leaping over the other fence. I hear her barking at the mooks behind me, a sound like laser cannons firing from a sci-fi flick, and a loud, wretched whine as her body is flung up against the wooden gate. Instead of leaping over the gate like I had, they blast through it, sending wooden shards raining everywhere. They go for a shot at me but I turn around the corner down an alley and they end up blasting a huge hunk off of the building behind me. They really aren't playing games. How the hell am I going to lose them?

I grab onto a nearby fire escape and clamber up onto the roof with them firing off lasers at me the whole way. I just barely get up to the top before the whole metal frame of it is reduced to smoldering scraps. They don't have to climb after me, they just happened to be so athletically adept that they can jump it. So now they're hot on my heels again and that poor pooch died for nothing.

On my way past a clothesline, I snatch a pair of shorts free, wrapping it halfway around a thick power line. I don't waste a moment to look behind me to see how close they are, I simply leap off the edge of the apartment building, using the shorts to slide down the power line. I'm suddenly aware of how severe my arm gash is once the muscles are strained, but I don't have much choice. I hear that sound again, the sound their shoulder mechanisms make when they fire off those blade disks. I know I'm a sitting duck like this so I catch myself thinking that I should let go before the disks reach me.

A horrible, piercing pain brings my thought train to a screeching halt when I witness the blade completely sever my forearm. With a terrified, agonizing scream, I involuntarily release the shorts and plummet down several stories to smack into the ground below.

Through a pain more profound than I've ever known, I remain in an altered, sort of spinning, dream-like state, haunted by visions of demons chewing at me. Every nerve ending is heightened and quivering in distress. Maybe I'm awake and hallucinating, or maybe I'm dead and in Hell. I'm not sure, but it's more than I ever thought I'd be able to endure without going completely insane.

Or maybe I am insane? I do have a habit of running around in my longjohns.

Some of my questions are eventually answered a while later when I somehow manage to wake up. My entire left arm is on fire, up to the shoulder, running into my neck, my skull and all the way down my spinal column. I'm lying naked on a metallic table with bright lights shining down on me from above. The last thing I remember is losing that arm, so when I strain to look down and see something that resembles what mine used to look like, on top of all the pain and stress, I fall mercy to panic. I use my good arm to attempt to sit myself up, but the clawed, blood-covered hand of one of those monsters comes out of nowhere to push me back down by my chest. I'm so horrified, and in so much anguish, I can't even scream; I can only make a series of pathetic whimpering noises.

Those lights are so bright; all I can see clearly are the creature's brown and black spotted arms and abdomen, coated in my blood. Everything from the chest up to its dreadlocks remains cloaked in shadow. It makes a sort of rolling clicking noise, flexing a fist at me, tapping my bad arm, then flexing again.

Is that what it wants me to do? I attempt to will my muscles to flex. I see the fingers on the new hand twitch, but not close completely. "Auugghh god, I can't! I can't! It hurts so bad! What did you fucking do to me?"

It points into my chest. "Ell-osde nan-ku, ooman." Its voice is base and guttural, as though it were straining to pronunciate anything other than screeching and rolling clicks.

"Whuh-what? I can't… I don't understand you…" My whole body is trembling now.

"Ooman!" It growls. "Ell-osde! Ooman!" It keeps pointing to me in frustration. Okay, patience is not one of their strong points.

"Ooman…you mean Human?"

It nods its head at me, flexing what looks to be mandibles coming out of its face. It grabs a vial of something and attaches it to what looks to be a hypodermic needle-type device. Tears stream down my temples from fear of what it plans to do to me next. To my surprise, it places a gentle hand over my eyes. "M-di h'dlak, ooman." I don't understand that either, but for some strange reason, the tone of its voice calms me.

It jabs me in the neck with that hypodermic which doesn't hurt any worse than I've been hurting, so I don't make a sound. After a few moments, a cold, comforting sensation wells up in my left shoulder, making its way into my spine and down my arm. I release a deep, thankful sigh of relief as the hurting wanes into a far more manageable dull, throbbing ache. The creature stares down at me as my muscles relax. It taps on my bad arm again and makes a fist. With a deep breath, I try to copy him again. Once more, the fingers wiggle but the fist doesn't close. "I-I'm sorry… I'm trying, it won't, I can't do it."

"C'jit!" It exclaims, slamming its fist against the side of the table. "Pauk-de kwei pyode amedha!" And with that, it storms off in a huff, leaving me alone.

"Hey! Hey, wait, come back here!" I take a good look around now and see nothing familiar about this place. The walls are black and dark green, made out of something that looks like either metal or plastic, or maybe neither. The strange red glowing glyphs on the walls don't look like it spells out any language I've ever seen on Earth. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto.

I hear that thing in the next room bitching about its shoddy handiwork to its colleagues. I can't help myself; with my good hand, I feel around my new arm to see exactly what the creature attached to me. The first thing I notice is that the arm is ice cold to my touch. The skin is thick and rubbery, and slightly bluish-gray in color. Whatever's underneath is hard, possibly bionic? Damn, does this make me a cyborg now? That would be way cooler if there wasn't so much pain involved.

The creature bathed in my blood returns now with one of his friends. This one's way bigger with a huge, bony forehead. They're bantering back and forth in that crazy language with those rolling clicks mixed in. The one who operated on me makes a fist, then points at my bad arm. The both of them go up to this console-like thing in the corner and use their claws to activate it. A holographic screen appears in front of them with what look to be assorted x-rays of my arms, spinal chord and several other things I can't identify. It touches the image and moves things around in mid-air. Their technology is impressive as hell! They could do so much to help other, less advanced civilizations… so why do they go around hunting people for sport? It's such a shameful waste. Then again, if Humans had that level of technology, we'd probably end up doing the same.

"So what went wrong?" I shout out to them, but they ignore me so I see no harm in continuing to muse out loud to myself. "Well, I'm no neurosurgeon, but if I had to guess, I'd say the problem is either how the bionics are attached to the arm muscles themselves, or maybe there's more extensive damage to the nerve clusters in my spine than you guys might have originally estimated. It could also be that you did it right and I merely need time to rework the muscles back to the strength they were at…" I stop speaking when I notice they're both staring at me. "What?"

The bigger one points at me, addressing his colleague who patched me up. "Ki'dte! Dhi'ki-de, h'ka-se!" All four of its face mandibles flare out angrily. The one covered in my blood rushes over to a nearby table to fill up another hypodermic for me.

"Ah, that's the ever popular, 'shut that bigmouthed Human up, this instant!' command if I've ever heard it." I laugh to myself as it approaches me with my sleep juice injection. "Just answer me one question, please. After you guys get my new arm to work, what do you plan on doing with me?"

The creature puts its hand over my eyes again and I actually hear it sigh. Its voice is almost a hoarse whisper, as though it doesn't want the other one to hear. "Kv'var." It sticks me on the other side of my neck and I hear the hissing of the sleep juice coursing into me. I don't understand what a Kv'var is; it could mean dissection for all I know… but just the fact that it told me is nice.

Whatever the hell they ladled into me kicked my ass so hard, it feels like I've been asleep for weeks. I don't even remember dreaming. The first thing I'm aware of, before I even completely regain consciousness, is a dreadfully painful ache in my bad arm. It's the kind of throbbing, prickly sensation you'd get if the arm fell asleep for too long and the circulation were finally returning to you. The good news, besides the fact that I'm still drawing breath is that the pain in my back and neck have significantly diminished. The second thing I notice is that my movement is very restricted. I seem to be in some sort of containment pod. It's so tight that I can't even wiggle my good arm up to wipe the cobwebs from my eyes.

"Ugghh…" I let out a few coughs from the stale, recycled oxygen they have flowing around in here. "Hey… anyone there? Anyone? Doctor creature? Somebody? Hellooo?" I hear the raspy hollow of my own voice bouncing off the inside of my pod. I manage to get one eye open and peek through the foggy glass. The lighting in here is dim but I can see those glowing red glyphs and flashing lights of something attached to my pod quite clearly. Out of sheer curiosity I attempt to wiggle the fingers of my bionic hand. I can move them easier, but I can't feel them same the way I feel my other hand. It's almost like having a catcher's mitt on; you flex the very tip of the mitt by moving what you can of your shorter extremities underneath, only for me that extremity ends right below my elbow. It's difficult, but I seem to have better control now with less pain. Whatever they did to fix me, it worked.

One of those creatures comes into the room and flicks on the light. I can see his face clearly now, and from his familiar brown and black pigmentation, I can tell it's the medic who worked on me. It comes up to my pod and my brown eyes meet it's reddish-orange ones. Those mandibles gyrate soundlessly at me as it begins punching buttons on that mechanism attached to my pod. There's a slow hissing sound and the lid opens. It wastes no time taking my bad arm at the wrist and holding it out in front of me. With its other hand, it makes a fist. I try real hard and watch as my bionic hand closes completely. It makes more rolling clicks, nodding its head in satisfaction.

"Ha! Look, I did it!" I flex my new and improved hand open and closed a few times for effect. It nods at me in approval, takes some sort of metal staff out of its belt and places it in my hand. I gawk at it. "What do you want me to do with this?" It makes a fist at me once more, squeezing its hand closed to illustrate crushing. Okay, it's a strength test now. "After this, can I have some clothes please? It's rather nippy out here."

"Chiva." It squeezes its fist again.

"Okay, okay, fine, you guys can keep staring at me butt naked if it gets you hot..." I will my muscles to squeeze and to my astonishment, the metal bends like Styrofoam in my grasp... and I wasn't even trying that hard. My eyes and mouth go wide. "Whoa." I squint at it in bewilderment. "Why have you guys done this? I thought you were out to kill me because I stole one of your masks. Why would you go through the trouble of replacing my arm and rehabilitating me? What does that thing, Kv'var mean?"

It rolls out a few more clicks at me. "Kv'var…" It points at my new arm. "Dtai'k-de. Ell-osde Dtai'k-de." It takes a step back and performs a few punching and kicking maneuvers.

I gasp, finally getting it's meaning. "Wait, fighting? Is that what Kv'var means?"

It shakes its head no at me, its dreadlocks thrashing about. "Dtai'k-de." It punches and high-kicks the air again, repeating that word as he does so. "Dtai'k-de."

"That words means fighting." It points at me and nods. "So you fixed me so I could fight?" It comes close to me, putting a hand on either side of the pod's opening, nodding its head slowly in agreement. I back up as far into the pod as I could fit, body trembling slightly from the sudden realization of what's going on here. "Wait a minute… you guys are hunters. You… fixed me so I'd be more worthy prey. Kv'var means hunt."

With its eyes and mandibles wide, looking pleased as punch that I finally understand, it slowly reaches up, and with a feather-light touch, nudges the tip of my nose. I burst into tears right in front of it from terror. "M-di h'dlak, ooman." It wiggles its fingers at me as it closes the lid to my pod, trapping me inside again. When it walks out, closing the light behind it, all I can do is cry myself back to sleep, awaiting the nightmare that's to come.