Disclaimer: I don't own anything that's been previously copyrighted. So, that leaves Morrick, Sam, Liz, Tim, and Alvin at my tender mercies. Oh, joy. Oh, yeah, and those other people…

7. Amnion Technology and Xenomorph Girls

France really isn't as smelly or dirty as the guidebooks say it is. Or maybe that's because we've not really in France, we're just in a clever simulacrum. Or, there's been an incident with the space-time continuum.

"Or, we're at your silly fair," K'ata, who wasn't liking this at all, growled at me. She was wearing her full body armor, which was heavy and uncomfortable - alright, I'd been playing with it - and not fun to wear. However, the invisibility-jigger worked better with it than when she was wearing just clothes.

"'T isn't silly," I growled back. "It's historic, and it's pretty." For the last half hour, I'd been trying to explain the cultural value of the Fair of Ages. She'd been sticking to her idea that it was just another excuse for human silliness. And the horrid thing was, this hadn't started as an argument. She was the one who asked about it. I'd only been trying to answer truthfully; I can't help it if I'm biased.

"Still, I don't understand why I have to be here," she muttered. "I'm missing Name That Fruit."

"You really love that show, don't you?" Liz asked from beneath her veils. Rather than duel with me today as a lady, she chose to be a nun. Nuns don't use swords. Bothersome…

"If she went on it, she'd win," I said crossly. "She's watched it so much that she's found a pattern in the fruit."

Liz whistled appreciatively. "Fruit patterning. The job of the future. Data patterning, minus the data, plus a shiny banana!"

"Bananas aren't shiny," K'ata corrected her. Then she jumped and asked, "What do you know about data patterning?"

"It's boring," I said.

"What Sir Morrique said," Liz said.

"Shh, the others know me as Morrick the Beautiful, and you should too, dearling," I said, wrapping a knightly arm around Sister Liz, who promptly slapped me with my own gauntlet. "Ow."

"Do not molest members of the clergy," she said severely.

I stuck my tongue out at her and ran away before she could retaliate. Liz and retaliation mix too well, you see, and it is always painful. For me, anyway.

"C'mon, Lady K'ata, I have a yen to fence," I declared triumphantly.

"That sounds like it hurts," she observed calmly. "I thought a yen was a Chinese - whatever they are - monetary unit."

"'T is," I said. "But, it's also like a need. And don't be cheeky. 'T isn't nice."

"Why don't you just say need instead of yen?"

"Because, silly, I have to sound grand," I said happily.

"I think you are suffering from an endorphin overdose. I have a yen to stick another needle into your neck," she said as she lunged playfully at me.

I dodged her and feinted back at her. She held my wrists and told me that this was boring. Personally, I thought she was afraid I might beat her. She wasn't really trained for fighting, I'd figured out when she was messing around with my weapons. (I collect knives, swords, throwing stars, even a few pole-arms. They're all piled higgledy-piggledy in my closet.) She was trying to get my seven-point stars to open, and not succeeding at all. Technically, that's good, because if you open one before you throw it, you'll end up with a lovely new hand piercing, which may or may not rot, as I put snake venom on almost all my blades, especially the assassination ones.

"No more needles, miss. And lemme go. People are staring, you'll see if you look over there," I said and nodded to the small teenage tourist group. Wiccans, I guessed because of the t-shirts they were wearing. They came from all over for their summits and Sabbats and such, as Uncle Byron was very… friendly. "My spirit guide and I are having a disagreement," I called to them.

"Awesome," one especially sensitive teenager said. "Hey, how do you get your to talk to you? Ours only come to us with the aid of… uh… herbs, yeah, herbs." Hmm… Maybe I meant stoned instead.

Feeling evil, I told them, "Just jabber your innermost feelings to them constantly, and they'll eventually start telling you to shut it. Thus, you have conversation. It's up to you to make small talk."

They all nodded and said things like cool and groovy and bing-dank, whatever that means. Bloody hippies. They were only in it for the pentagrams; I hate people like that.

"You seem to hate a lot of stuff," K'ata told me.

"Or, we all live in a giant turnip," I mocked.

"You're strange."

"I know. Hey, how's about I be Captain Kirk and you be… you?"

She slapped me. Drat, she's gotten to the Star Trek. We are doomed. "Yes, you are. And I thought Tim and Alvin's minds were bad."

"Uh, I was doing this Earth thing… It's called sarcasm. You may have heard of it?"

"Just go kill another idiot with that sword, will ya, please?" she said, mimicking my accents. For the record, I haven't killed anyone that I know of, and if I did kill them, well, oops.

Yet, I am pretty good with a sword. I've only ever been beaten twice, and my opponents were both older, bigger, and faster than me, and it took a while for them to wear me down to laziness. So far today, I was two wins for two matches. It goes on and on like this just about every time, and I have to put up with every idiot who's ever bought a samurai sword at a yard sale and wants to challenge me. They have to sign papers saying they won't mess with me if I break their weapon, it's happened so many times. Oh, and insurance dealies, too.

"Even in your mind, you gloat," K'ata said, either shocked or admiring, I don't know which.

"Yep, and I have reason to," was my stubborn retort.

"Perhaps, some day, I will play swordsman with you," she said menacingly.

"I don't know whether to be afraid of death or pleased that you consider me worth your time," I said honestly.

"Whatever, just go play," she said. "And kill them this time. Mercy is for those who deserve it."

"I've told you, I'm not allowed to kill them!" She'd been at me all morning, trying to get me to kill. I was plenty old enough to be blooded, she said, whatever that meant. Some concepts of Earth culture she just refused to grasp.

I was up against a lady this time, an honest to god lady, who happened to be wielding the biggest broadsword I'd ever seen, and she acted as if it was a rapier or something light like that. This, I thought to myself, will be interesting. She was well versed in how one moves in relation to a weapon like that, but she kept getting tangled in her skirts. (Lots of deep purple skirt, loaded with lace and ruffles, that sort of thing.) I was wearing her down, though. One as small as she was - five foot eight, I'd say, slender build, a bit Barbie doll-ish - just couldn't keep up with a weapon that bloody big. It defies physics.

And then my sword practically flew from my hand. She had made an upward swipe, striking just above the hilt of my own weapon, the shock making me release my grip and her momentum sending my sword flying. The tip of her broadsword moved to my throat, the classic question of surrender or die. I chose to surrender, bowed, and complimented her on her technique. She nodded gracefully, never saying a word as I reclaimed my sword and retreated.

"You're attracted to her," Liz whispered fiercely just outside the crowd. She had confronted me before I had managed to school my expression back to neutrality. I must've looked like a love-sick puppy.

"I am not," I said hotly. "I'm simply infatuated with her talent, is all."

"You egotistic masochistic--"

"Stop using words I don't know to intimidate me." Ha ha, actually, I know those words, but if Liz keeps thinking that I'm not very bright, she might slip and tell me more about herself. I've known her for years and years, and she's still a bit of a mystery to me.

"Morrick." K'ata prodded me roughly. "That female, the one you fought?"

"What about her?" I asked, feeling annoyed. Let me at least sheath the bloody sword, please people!

"She is not-- Well, no, she may have once been…" K'ata went back to thinking. "I'll be with you in a moment."

"Lovely," I said. "She's turned into a receptionist."

"Congrats on having your butt kicked, boyo," Sam said cheerfully. She was dressed as a prostitute, and had her arm linked with legionary Alvin.

"Hah, too right, he got his bum kicked. Any child could've known that if she could pick that thing up, she'd have some other tricks up those lacy sleeves," Alvin gloated. Why he was gloating, I'd no idea. Maybe he'd been bonked in the head with a catapult or something.

"She wasn't quite human," K'ata said, startling Sam and Alvin, who hadn't known that she was there.

"If you give me a heart attack, I'm having Sam cut off my head and put it on your pillow," Alvin threatened.

"Remind me to keep the doors locked," I told K'ata. "Now, whatcha mean, she ain't human?"

"Oh, she has some of the human components, but the others…" She shook her head. "She's been genetically modified, with mutagens or a DNA sifter, I can't tell which. And before you go tasking me about DNA, Morrick, it's a different acronym."

"Wait, wait, how do you know this?" Liz asked fretfully. "Can you tell what's human and what's not with that mask thing?"

"Well, yes, but I didn't need it for her. She has a xenomorphic tail, along with a few other things, hidden under that skirt."

Sam and Alvin lost their taste for the conversation and went away to throw stuff at the naughty people in the stocks. Tim, because he'd inadvertently looked up a barmaid's skirt, was one of those people.

K'ata, Liz, and I were reclining under one of the buildings. Okay, strictly, this wasn't a public place, but Liz is probably going to inherit this place anyway. Besides, we won't need to explain why we were under there; we'd just have to explain K'ata. Hmm… That doesn't sound as reassuring here as it did in my head.

"So, you're telling us that not only has she been mutated, but she's also got Yautja weaponry?" I asked.

"And a few Renox knives, and an Asgard communicator," K'ata repeated. "Not to mention that Wraith dart activator… Um, you would call it a car key."

"What is she?" Liz asked.

"Beats me. All I know is she's dangerous." Oh, great, K'ata wanted to kill her. B-e-a-utiful.

Something weird caught my eye. "K'ata, activate your invisibility-jigger," I whispered. She did. They were the same, the other blur a bit smaller than hers, but the same. "Do you see that?" I asked her, my mouth dry.

"Yes," she hissed. She crept towards the thing. It evidently saw her and decided to run. She ran after it, too fast for Liz or me to keep our eyes on.

I sniffed sadly. "My baby's all grown up." Liz whacked me.

"How dare you cheat on me!"

"Hey, I can get tickets to the Jerry Springer Show, if you wanna take it that way."

"Er…" Jerry impinged on her etiquette standards. "Let's get out of here. If Byron catches us, we'll be having a shotgun wedding, and we can't even drive yet."

"Oh, Gods… And we need to find Miss Priss. Wonder who she was chasing?" Liz knows more about this than I do, apparently. I'm not supposed to be smart, just pretty.

"Didn't you see the shape?" she asked as we climbed out of the convenient hidey-hole. "It was smaller than she was."

"So we're dealing with a midget?"

"Idiot. We're probably dealing with a male."

I blinked. "So?"

"So, what're the odds of a male and a female Yautja showing up here at the same time almost? And that other woman-thing you like…"

"I told you, I don't like her!"

"Whatever." We found a table in the shade, and I got Cokes. "You know what? I think that the woman and that other male are here together, looking for K'ata."

"Um, she said that no one would come looking for her for like two hundred years," I said. "Maybe Earth is like the Florida of the universe, where all the aliens come on vacation."

Liz gave me the Look. Okay, right, I was very stupid, please don't hurt me.

"You're right, you know," a woman's voice said behind us. We both looked back, but there was nothing there. "Here," she said as she pulled a chair over to our table. It was the woman I fought, only now instead of the purple gown she wore slick leather, and her tail was wrapped closely around her thigh. She had long black hair, pulled back into a ponytail, and bright, leafy green eyes, rimmed with thick black lashes. Her human skin was milk white, and the other was dark blue-green. Along one arm there was what appeared to be a modified version of the shoulder cannon K'ata wore, and at her waist there was a whip-type thing. The rest of her bristled with knives.

Though we were both awestruck - well, she was pretty! - Liz spoke first. "Who's right?'

The woman laughed. It sent shivers down my spine. "You both are. But we have not been properly introduced, have we? I am Turi" - she pronounced it "TOO-ree" - "honorary member of the Ra'kesh clan, blooded and god-born. You are?"

"A rabid cabbage," Liz said. "Look, you can't have K'ata, we won't--"

"Let me?" she asked and laughed again. "I hardly think you could stop us if we wanted her. But worry not, for we are after" at this point she got a really nasty look to her, like a vulture who sees a dog cross the street "much bigger game." Her expression became more pleasant, and she said, "I certainly hope Kou'al will restrain himself with your girl… She did start it, after all! Poor dear, not even blooded yet, it doesn't seem."

"Well then, why are you bothering us?" Liz asked, most inhospitably. She was noticing that my jaw was slack and I was still staring at Turi, I think.

"Oh, am I bothering you?" she asked. "Well, I suppose you'll just have to grin and bear it. Now, you were about to tell me your names." She used the tip of her tail to clean her very, very long, claw-like fingernails. My, my, this woman was a walking cliché, I remember thinking.

I stopped Liz, who was about to say something unpleasant. "I'm Morrick Lawrence Evans, son of Marie, um, Rachael Kinsey, daughter of my granny, whose name escapes me at the moment. This is Elizabeth Anne Warner, daughter of Lily Anne Anthony, daughter of Knits-Many-Hats. If we seem rude to you, we can't help it, she's an ignorant hillbilly."

"Excuse me!" Liz began, only to be glared into silence by me. (I sigh mentally as I wonder if I'm a bad future husband.)

Turi had listened to me with her head turned to one side, her eyes unblinking. Now she nodded. "At least one of you has some sense." She looked up over my head and a smile spread over her face. "I believe the children are back."

A deep male voice - right above me, for the love of Pie! - said, "I'm older than you, Spacemonkey."

"Yeah, but who still carries his blankie everywhere with him?" she said in a baby voice.

"It ain't a blanket, it's a mage's kit, and it isn't even mine. It there anywhere where we can de-cloak?" he asked curtly.

Turi's tail uncoiled and started whipping back and forth. "Very well, then, children, back to your hiding place, and no silliness either."

Meanwhile, orbiting Earth, the occupants of a large ship were watching this whole show via satellite. These people, call them the crew if you like, even though the never really do anything, consisted of a vampire in a Kull warrior suit, a cat-person, another genetically modified human female, a normal human female, a dragon-spliced man, and their pet rock. They have no significance whatsoever, but the author would like to let you know that you aren't the only one who's reading this. Cheers.
"That was very strange," I said. "Have we been eating mushrooms?"

"I don't think so," Liz said.

"Another day in the life of Strange People, I suppose." I sighed and followed Turi back beneath the building.

The other two aliens de-cloaked, and I got a good look at this new fellow, Koala, or whatever his name is. His armor was a bit more silvery than K'ata's, and he was about half a foot shorter than her, but he made up for that with muscle. His hair jewelry was onyx or obsidian, some sort of black gem, and he wore the same as bracelets. They reminded me of the torques that Celtic chieftains wore back in the day. The backs of his hands were covered by three intertwined cobras, the two wrapping around the one.

K'ata seemed to be a bit worse for the wear, missing all of her weapons and a bit bruised-looking. They must've fought, and he won. Well, of course he won, he's older and more experienced, and trained, and…

"And just a better fighter than her, due to necessity," he said. Oh, great, another mind-reader. "Actually," he said as he drifted up to the ceiling as though gravity had taken a lunch break, stood on the ceiling, and made objects zoom haphazardly around the room, "I can do a bit more than read minds."

I looked to K'ata, and she shrugged and muttered "show-off" in a very fatigued tone.

Turi snapped at Whatsit, "What are we going to do about them?" and nodded obviously at us.

"Well, nothing," he said. "They can't hinder us, and I doubt they'd tell anyone. Their government would have them killed."

"Nuh-uh!" I said. "My dad works for the government. He's on the Air Force payroll."

"How nice. Turi, dear, do I hear a little hummer saying 'Take me hostage, won't you please?'?" he asked.

"But he doesn't like me that much," I said quickly.

"Hmm… Little hummer lies…"

"Do not! And why are you calling me a hummer?"

"You are like a hummingbird: small, annoying, and hyper."

"Well, you're a hippie," I said. "Oh, my gods, I am bantering wittily with a space alien."

"Groovy," he said. "I've been on Earth before you were even considered. Turi, they'll be fine, but we need to find our bounty."

"Yeah, yeah, the green thing, I know." She crawled out of the building.

"Return my weapons to me," K'ata growled. "Your mate is gone, and you will show me the respect I deserve. I outrank you."

He tossed her cannon to her and said, "A, she isn't my mate anymore, B, you deserve no respect, as you deserted your clan, and C, I'm not outranked by anyone, as I'm part of no Guild."

"This is gonna be fun," I said as I nudged Liz. The two Yautja looked at me like I'd just turned into a large spotted toad and was doing the Strip-tease Macarena. (I've actually done that.)

"Found him!" Turi yelled at us as she crashed through the very solid Styrofoam wall, half covered in green slime. She waved a thin green arm at Kou'al, and then we saw that there was a body attached to that. A very small, stumpy body, which made the arms look strangely elongated, and it had big, pointy ears.

"It it still alive?" Kou'al asked. Turi shook the thing and it emitted several loud, squirrel-like squeaks. "Good enough. You three, get over here." We did. "We're going for a little ride," he explained.

He typed something on that little computer of his, and several rings seemed to fall down around us. There was a very fuzzy feeling, almost like I was being tickled by thousands of small furry bunnies, and then I realized that I was giggling and staring at what must've been Australia from space. I sneezed. Stranger things had happened.

"Oh, really?" a small blonde woman said. She was wearing what I took to be a lab coat, and she had several very big needles handy in a thigh pocket.

"Eek!" I screamed, and hid behind K'ata. To my surprise, she grabbed me by the collar and deposited me on my knees in front of the needle-woman. I flashed K'ata a betrayed look, and then fainted at the sight of the other one pulling out an injector-thingy.

I woke up a few seconds later with a very sore elbow. Well, at least she knew where needles are supposed to go. It took me a moment to notice that I was in yet another room, and I was staring at a gaunt man with longish, scruffy black hair. It was strange, because I think I knew who he was, or is, or might be, but I couldn't think of his name…

Sirius Black.

Oh, crap, I'm doomed.

He snorted, and said, "Nice to meet you, too."

A/N: Aaaahh! Attack of the rabid plot bunnies! Well, I always kinda thought that the Veil or Arch or whatever was some messed up Stargate. So, I cannot resist.

Also, sorry for not being as prompt as usual, my computer pulled a mutiny on me, and some people are very slow when it comes to informing me that things are fixed.

FlowersLilac: Thanks for reading. Love your work, btw. Yeah, I was worried that I'd get jumped or something, despite the whole living on different continents. I'm sure when he got drugged up he was very confused too.

Zappy: Claudia can't do anything, for fear that he'll leave something unpleasant, such as road kill, in her delicates drawer. Hehehe…

Jacob: Morrick has parents: they're just not very there. He's nearly fifteen, and Liz is fifteen, and K'ata is nineteen, although if she were human she'd be like ten or something. Thanks for reading, and please read more in the future.