Korhal
The world had ended.
At least to Kate Lockwell, it looked like it had. Wherever she turned, there was nothing but smoke, ruins, and an ash-gray sky. There was no life, not even any bodies. Just piles of concrete and neosteel. There was no sound, but the wind and faint whispers at the edge of her hearing.
She looked like hell. Her clothes were ragged and torn, her hair a tangled mess, and her skin was as grey as the skies overhead. Where was she? How could this have happened? There was supposed to be an army out there somewhere. Kate set out to find them, to get to safety, but she couldn't find her way. Nothing but piles of rubble as far as the eye could see. Nothing that could have told her where she was or where she should be going. She was lost.
Feelings of despair and a torrent of questions were slowly driving the reporter mad. Where was she? Where was everyone? Why was she out here alone? Why did they leave her to die like some leper? How…
Kate heard a faint chittering on the edge of her hearing. She turned to the source of the noise, but saw nothing. She could have sworn that she saw movement in the corner of her eyes, but the shape disappeared into the smoke before she could get a look at it. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Falling back on her flight-or-fight instincts, she ran. The thing in the dark was fast, however. Lockwell could hear it get closer and closer, even as it vanished every time she looked back.
Terror gripped her heart in a vice-like grip. All she knew was to run. Run and not get caught, at any cost. No matter what she would not get caught. No no no no no. Never get caught. Never…
Something grabbed her from behind and threw her on the ground. Within moments, it was onto her, tearing through her clothes and into her flesh, its touch warping her skin and burning like acid. Pain flooded her mind, a pain worse than any she had ever experienced before. She tried throwing the monster off, but her limbs couldn't muster the strength to do it. It's like they didn't want to, like her own body wanted to be ripped to shreds and…
Kate Lockwell screamed.
Suddenly, a door opened a man with a flashlight and a concerned look on his face. "Miss Lockwell, are you alright?" He asked. "It sounded like you were getting murdered back there."
Kate looked around. She was in her quarters, back at the UNN building. After a quick inspection, she found no claw marks or any sign that that a monster had ever been near her. There was nothing wrong with her, apart from the fact that she was covered in sweat. It was just a dream. Nothing more than a silly dream. "I'm alright, sergeant. Just a nightmare."
"Again? That's the third time this week."
"We're all a little on edge." Lockwell replied, dismissively. "I'm fine."
"Bullshit. Look, PTSD isn't something you should take lightly. You need to get yourself some help before you lose it, okay?"
"I'm fine!" The reporter snapped back, much more harshly than she wanted.
"Okay, geez, just trying to be helpful here. No need to bite my head off. Just talk to someone, alright. Me, LT, or hell, there's gotta be a shrink around here somewhere."
"I'll be okay, sergeant. Thank you." She replied, before the soldier thankfully left her alone. She looked at her watch. Still 3 o'clock in the morning. Damn. She had hoped to get a little more sleep tonight.
Kate had lied to the sergeant. She was not alright and she knew it. This was more than just shell-shock and it couldn't be fixed by a mere therapist. What was happening to her, what was happening inside her, couldn't be stopped. Not by a doctor, not by anyone…
She pushed the thoughts out of her mind. It was just a nightmare. Kate Lockwell was a strong and independent woman and she wasn't going to let a few bad dreams get to her. Nevertheless, she didn't want to go to sleep anymore. She probably wouldn't get any even if she tried. After taking a quick shower and getting dressed, she headed to the main hall and had a cup of coffee. The invigorating smell went a long way in making her feel better.
What to do now, Lockwell wondered. It was still the middle of the night and she wouldn't have anything to do until sunrise. She noticed one of their resident Zerg seemingly meditating in a room and found her 'reporter sense' tingling. Kate grabbed an extra cup of coffee and headed over. Time for a fishing expedition. Lilith didn't react until the reporter sat down besides her and startled her out of her reverie.
"Sorry about that." Lockwell said, apologetically. "Didn't mean to surprise you."
"It's okay, I was just having an argument with an overlord about who's higher in the chain of command. I'll hack floaty's brain the next time." A feral gleam formed in Lilith's eyes, but faded immediately when she saw what the reporter was carrying. "Is that…real coffee?!" With a smile, Lock handed her extra cup over. The girl eagerly grabbed it, savoring the wonderful smell. "Man, it must have been a year since I last had coffee. Thanks Kate, you're the best."
"The Zerg don't know how to make coffee?"
"Oh, I'm sure they know how, they just don't bother. We get everything we need from creep. Guess we're too utilitarian to worry about coffee. Well, apart from me." Lilith said, visibly enjoying her drink.
"I guess you don't need help staying awake when you never sleep to begin with."
"Pretty much. Speaking of which, why are you still up? It's hard to keep track of time when you don't have a watch or a biological day-night cycle, but even I know it's the middle of the night."
Lockwell sighed. "Oh, just bad dreams."
"Want to talk about it?"
"No, I'd rather not." Kate said, trying hard not to remember her nightmare.
"Fair enough." At least Lilith had the decency not to pry. She was quite polite in her mannerisms and very human in her interactions, which did surprise the reporter a little. Maybe Kate was just being biased, but was it really that strange to assume that an alien woman would actually act a little more alien? That said, Lilith had a habit of occasionally acting a little…off. The way she casually described things like mind-controlling another Zerg, or telepathic communication in general, as if she was just talking about the weather was more than a little frightening sometimes. On the other hand, she desperately wanted to fit in with the human soldiers. Even the lieutenant seemed to like her, which boggled the reporter's mind. Then again, she did get promoted to designated changeling catcher for a reason…
All in all, Kate couldn't help but pity her. It looked like the girl desperately wanted to be human, but never quite succeeded. She saw a fusion of human and alien features and wondered if anyone, even Lilith herself, knew which had the upper hand. It was intriguing, especially since the Zerg queen herself would probably have the same issues. Just how much of their humanity do these people have left? Lockwell would be a poor reporter if she didn't try to find out.
"Actually. I've been meaning to ask about Kerrigan…" Kate began, cautiously.
"Kerrigan? Sure, what about her…Wait, isn't she going to mind…" The girl quickly closed her eyes and shook her head. "No, she doesn't. Go ahead."
The reporter wondered what to make of this behavior. "I won't pry if she isn't okay with it."
"I just asked, it's alright. Telepathy has its uses." The girl shrugged. "At any rate, she wants to be transparent. We need better PR, and all that. So, what do you want to know about boss?"
"Well, you know she agreed to an interview, right?"
"Yeah, I've heard. That's not a problem, right? Just a simple conversation?"
Kate laughed. "I wish it was. No, in my line of work, it's never 'just a simple conversation'. Politicians and high-ranking officials have this love-hate relationship with people like me. On the one hand, they need us to let the whole world know how great they are. On the other…"
"Nobody lives up to their own propaganda." The girl nodded. "One wrong move and people will find out that you're just as screwed up as the rest of us. Or that you're secretly a mass murderer."
The reporter realized that the 'mass murderer' comment wasn't a coincidence. "Pretty much. I take it that you're not exactly a Mengsk sympathizer, right?"
"I'm from Mar Sara. Being anti-government is pretty much mandatory."
Lockwell nodded. She had been to Mar Sara several times over the years and it had always been a breeding ground of rebels and freedom fighters. While she had trouble taking them seriously (after all, anyone willing to take on an interstellar empire by themselves had to be at least a little crazy), she couldn't help but note that the rebels got what they wanted in the end: Mengsk imprisoned, awaiting a trial and (almost certainly) an execution. It seemed like sometimes crazy was the best way to go.
"Anyway," the reporter continued "my job is to squeeze the big wigs just hard enough so that they actually tell me the truth, the real truth that is, but not so hard that they think I'm about to ruin their image and stop cooperating. But, in order to do that, I need to know a thing or two about the people I'm interviewing first so I don't accidentally step on anyone's toes. Unfortunately, Kerrigan is…was a ghost and just about everything about them is classified. Even I can't get to it. I did manage to get my hands on a psych-profile of the Queen of Blades, which was heavily censored but basically said that she's a sadist with a god complex and should be shot on sight. Funny thing is, even if I had a complete record of her past, I'm not sure how much good it'll do now that her entire body has been rewritten again."
Lilith nodded in understanding. "So you're hoping to get that information from someone who's known her as she is now, right? I'm not sure if I'm the best person to ask. I've only known her for what…two months, I think, not much more. Even then, I'm her employee, not her therapist. If there was something bothering her…not sure I would have picked up on it. You know, you should ask Tiberias. He's the one who busted her from Dominion custody a year ago. He's pretty much been her right hand man from the beginning. If there's anyone who can tell you what boss is like…"
Kate suddenly looked very uncomfortable. "Well…It's just that he's…"
"Crazy?"
"…Unreliable." The reporter said, diplomatically. "The things Mr. Cain says are a little…difficult to believe. Like how he said that he and his pet monstrosity killed three ghosts in close combat…"
"Actually, he did do that." Lilith interrupted.
"You're kidding." Kate replied, incredulously.
"Nope. I was there, trying to get the door open."
"Really? So that stuff about him breaking Raynor out of prison and commanding an entire fleet …"
"Which would make you sleep better?" The girl asked cheekily. "That I tell you he's talking out of his ass, or that all that actually happened?"
"Neither, I think." The reporter said morosely. "Regardless, it's better to get my information from more than one source."
"Makes sense." Lilith agreed. "So, what do you want to ask her?"
"Well, let's start with the big question: How do you know you're not the Queen of Blades?"
Lilith's eyes widened. "Geez, you don't pull any punches, do you?"
"I'm a reporter, it's my job. Besides, everyone watching the show is going to be asking that question, probably followed by: 'Shoot her, you stupid reporter lady, she's sitting three feet away!'"
The girl laughed in response. Good, Kate thought, people are more talkative when they don't think you're out to get them. "Yeah, that's probably true. Well, last time you asked me, I told you that I could feel the difference, right?"
"You did, but a lot of people aren't going to buy that. I'm going to need more evidence than…well…"
"The word of someone enslaved to her will? What could possibly be more reliable than that?" Lilith chuckled before rubbing her forehead. "Now that you mention it, it is pretty much impossible to explain to a…well…a human. Maybe it's better if I tell you how we met. I was infested when the Zerg hit Mar Sara last year and spent the months after that doing odd jobs for Sa'ti."
"Who?"
"Sa'ti, the broodmother in charge of the Zerg on Mar Sara. She's the one who actually did the infesting." Lilith explained. The reporter made a mental note to ask her what a 'broodmother' was and what constituted as odd jobs later. "Anyway, she had me running errands and set traps for the occasional unlucky Dominion jackboot when the Queen of Blades was killed. A while later, a hybrid showed up and pretty much mind-raped the broodmother, along with the rest of us, into working for it."
"Hybrids can do that?" Kate asked. She didn't like the idea of anyone being able to turn the 'friendly' Zerg against each other.
"Only when the Zerg aren't already controlled by another Zerg. Turns out, only proper Zerg can do that reliably and hybrids aren't Zerg enough, or something like that. I don't know how it works, really. You should ask Abathur, our chief scientist, about that."
"You have scientists?" Immediately, Lockwell cursed herself. In spite of all her research, she still new next to nothing about the actual Zerg Swarm. Sure, she could name most of the creatures found in combat footage, but beyond that…the Zerg could have a complex culture behind all the savagery and no one would have known. At the very least, she shouldn't have assumed that they didn't.
"Yes, we have scientists. Somebody's got to design our monstrosities, after all." Lilith said, seemingly surprised that the reporter hadn't made the connection herself. "Anyway, the hybrid's control over us was kind of sloppy, so when the opportunity presented itself, I ran into the underground tunnels and tried to go home. That's where I met Kerrigan. She wanted to kill the hybrid, got herself lost in the tunnels, and needed my help finding her way. I ended up showing her around."
"Guess you wanted a little payback for what the hybrid did to you."
"Actually, I just wanted to get as far away from the Zerg as I could. Screw Kerrigan and her hybrid. I didn't even recognize her at first. Why should I stick my neck out for them? I didn't owe her anything. Kerrigan, however, needed my help so she ordered me to show her around anyway. So, there I was, leading a Zerg army into the very place I was trying to run away from and the only thing preventing me from falling under the hybrid's control again was a woman I had quietly grown to despise."
"You know, it doesn't sound like Kerrigan has changed all that much to me…" Lockwell interrupted.
"Well, I may have called her a bitch…repeatedly. She did shoot me, though, so she kind of deserved that. At least she had the decency of feeling a little guilty about it. Also, I wasn't finished yet. After I led her to the hive, she let me go and I ran back into the tunnels to freedom."
"But you're still here, working for Kerrigan…"
Lilith sighed. "When I got to the surface, it finally hit me. I was infested. I couldn't go home, I wouldn't even make it past the city gates. Even if I did, what then? I've been gone for months, probably presumed dead. What was I supposed to do, knock on the front door looking like this? I collapsed on some rock and cried for a while. A while later, Tai showed up and told me Kerrigan was willing to take me in if I wanted to come back. I accepted and…well…the rest is history, I guess."
The reporter thought the story over for a while before saying: "You have to understand that it still sounds a little fishy to me. I mean, she put you in a rather awkward spot, didn't she? The Dominion would have killed you if she left you behind. You didn't have a choice but to come with her or die."
The girl glared at her, seemingly offended. While Lilith wasn't exactly an imposing figure, those glowing eyes of her were still positively terrifying. "If you really think that, then you don't understand the Zerg at all. The Swarm is basically a hierarchy with the stronger psychics ruling the weaker ones. By challenging Kerrigan, I challenged her authority. I was basically telling everyone that she was too weak to rule over me. The old Queen of Blades would have killed me or fried my brain on the spot just as a matter of principle. She would rather have made an example out of me then letting the Dominion get their hands on my body. She certainly wouldn't have let me go, even if she knew I'd have no choice but to come back. Kerrigan gave me a choice, even if it was a crap one. The old queen would never have done that."
In Lockwell's opinion, the girl seemed a little too certain. "Have you ever met the Queen of Blades yourself?"
"Not in person, but I didn't have to. Her voice was always there, like a thick fog inside my head, laughing every time I so much as thought of escaping. She was a sadist, Kate. Your psych profile was absolutely right. Kerrigan, though…Boss is not like that at all."
"So, what is she then?"
"Someone like me, I think. Just a young woman who got caught by the Zerg and unlucky enough to have a little quirk in her DNA that kept her from losing her mind. I don't know. Right now, I think she's just trying to survive and find a little happiness…"
"Like you?"
"Yeah." Lilith replied, softly. "We're not evil, Kate, we're just…"
"…Really, really unlucky. I think I understand."
"No, you don't, and I hope you never do. No one should have to find out what'll happen to them when they jump species."
Lockwell shifted uncomfortably, before taking control of the conversation again. "Do you hate Kerrigan for what happened to you?"
"No, I don't."
"Not even a little bit?" Considering what had happened, the reporter wouldn't have blamed Lilith for a second if she did hold Kerrigan responsible. The fact that she didn't was quite interesting. Was her loyalty to Kerrigan genuine or the result of the Zerg tampering with Lilith's head?
"She didn't do this to me. She's not the reason I see scales when I look at myself in the mirror. I can't blame her. That would be as stupid as blaming you for it."
Kate nodded in understanding. The girl's answer actually said a lot about her. "What about this 'Sa'ti'?"
Lilith suddenly went very quiet. "I want to hate her. Part of me does, but…She just doesn't get it. She's a real Zerg, as in born rather than infested like me. Because of that, Sa'ti doesn't think that she did anything wrong. From a Zerg perspective, she didn't. I can yell at her all day long and she just brushes me aside like some kid having a temper tantrum."
"It doesn't sound like she's trying to understand you."
"That's the worst part: she is trying. Sa'ti went out of her way to keep my personality intact and has been listening to me rant just to figure out how I think. She flat-out told me that she wants to earn my respect rather than simply forcing me to do whatever she wants and, for the most part, she lives up to it. That's the thing: she's trying her best but she's just too alien to get it. It's like broodmothers can't process basic human morality. Like they can't understand why someone would object to falling out of a cocoon and finding that they're covered in carapace and that their hair has disappeared."
"Funny that you'd even mention your hair…"
The girl grumbled. "Yes it's petty, I know, but it's little things like that make me wonder if I'm still me." On a less serious note, she added: "That, and I hate being bald. It just looks wrong on me. Some girls can pull it off, but me…" Her words were without real mirth, though.
"Right…" Lockwell smiled in response, if somewhat uncomfortably. She knew Lilith well enough by now to know that she wouldn't be getting much more out of the girl without getting on her nerves. Not on the topic of infestation, anyway. That said, Kate probably had enough for an entire show already. "You'll probably hate me for asking but…"
"You want to publish this, our little talks."
Damn, the girl was clever. Then again, Lockwell was a reporter. She would have wanted to publish something sooner or later. "Just in writing. No name, no face. Just me chatting with a random infested Terran, getting to know one another."
Lilith bit her lip. "I don't know…"
"No personal details. I think you deserve to have someone tell your story." Kate promised, being on the verge of pleading.
"Everyone thinks we're the enemy. That's not going to change with a few broadcasts."
"Raynor only needed one to bring the emperor to his knees."
"That's different but…" The girl rubbed her forehead. "Fine. No name, no face. My family shouldn't have to find out what happened to me from the 8 o'clock news."
"They won't, I promise." The reporter said, before taking her leave. Part of her couldn't help but feel ecstatic. She was the first reporter ever to interview an infested human and now she finally talked her source into getting something published. Yes, she'd have to fake the names, but that wasn't really an issue. Lockwell would have done that without asking for the sake of the victims' families. Still, an exclusive like this would make her career.
Assuming she'd live long enough to enjoy it.