Mary
by Nigel G. Mitchell

PART ZERO

"Mary" (in part or whole) can be freely distributed with the condition that no part of the text is modified, and this notice is included with all copies. It cannot be sold or translated into any other form without written permission from the author. Some characters and elements of this story are the property of St. Clare Entertainment, used without authorization. The author receives no compensation from the distribution of this work.

WARNING: The following story, "Mary," is based on characters and events that appeared in the unofficial season finale of "Sliders," "Invasion." Anyone who has not seen this episode is advised not to read this story, because it will spoil virtually everything in it. It even gives away The Ending.

To those who have seen the episode and plan to read this, I'd like to point out that "Mary" is about the life of one of the major characters who appeared in "Invasion." Though it is, in essence, a dramatized biography, this story is based solely on what was mentioned in "Invasion" and my own imagination. Therefore, huge chunks of it were invented entirely by me, and can't be taken as official canon. In other words, don't be surprised if later episodes or released information contradict what I've written.

I know this is unusual grounds for a fanfic story, but when I saw Mary, I was fascinated by the character. I listened to what she claimed as her lifestory, and watched the heart-rending ending, and began to imagine what the Kromaggs had done to her. What could have turned her into the devious, yet tortured, soul we had seen? The result is "Mary."

On the same note, I'd like to say that this story deals with psychological and physical torture in an unusual form. I was trying to emulate the insidious mindgames the Kromaggs displayed in "Invasion." While not explicitly graphic, I've been told by my beta-reader that "Mary" contains some scenes that might disturb people. Children and those who prefer more upbeat stories are advised not to read it.

Those who don't have WWW or FTP access can still contact me for missing portions by email. It would be greatly appreciated if you let me know in advance whether your email reader accepts attached files or has a size limit. :-)

Enjoy.

PART ONE

Mary loved her garden. She would do anything to get back to it, no matter what the Kromaggs ordered her to do. Mary had lied, cheated, stolen, and even killed for the simple pleasure of being allowed to spend time in her garden.

Right now, Mary was sitting on a stump, listening to the lyrical chirp of the birds in the trees above. Her every breath was filled with the luxurious perfume of a thousand flowers. She raised her eyes to the sky, looking at the blue which hung framed among the bars in the dome. She was calm and at peace, as she always was in her sanctuary.

As usual, Mary whispered a quiet thanks to the Kromaggs for giving her the garden. It had been a gift for her services. The Kromaggs had always been good to her. Today's five minutes in the garden had been her reward for a grueling six weeks of interrogating a rebel homo sapien. Her efforts at undermining the rebel's resistance and finding out his plans had resulted in the deaths of millions of rebels.

The thought of the deaths did not bother her. A good homo sapien was a dead homo sapien. That's what the Kromaggs had taught her, among other things. Homo sapiens, or sapes as the Kromaggs called them, deserved to die. They were vile, ugly, smelly, vicious, stupid creatures.

Mary leaned over to look down at the river that ran through her garden. For a moment, her own reflection came back to her. She felt the sweeping sense of loathing that she always felt at her appearance. The fact that she was a sape herself did not improve her opinion of homo sapiens. Sapes deserved extermination as she herself deserved extermination. It was evidence of the kindness and goodness of the Kromaggs that she was allowed to live and serve them.

Mary stretched out a hand and dipped it into the water. She cupped the water to her mouth to take a sip. The stretch felt good. She had to try to work the kinks out of her muscles before the Kromaggs put her back in her cage. She might not get called back to work again for quite some time.

Mary drank the water, then leaned back to watch a bird fly overhead. Sometimes, being in her garden reminded her of home. Of her Earth. There was no green in this world, known as Earth 113. Not like her world. Sometimes, if she lay back here long enough, and thought hard enough, she could remember what it had been like. She could remember her childhood and how it all began. She could remember the day the Kromaggs came to her world.

*

Mary's earliest memories were strange and confusing to her. The Kromaggs had taught her well about the world she had come from. They had taught her about the Kromagg peace ships arriving on her homeworld. There, they found a brutish, barbaric people consumed with hatred and war. The Kromaggs had embraced her world, taught them their ways and technology, and blessed them by allowing Mary's world to join the Kromagg Dynasty.

That was what the Kromaggs had taught her. But sometimes, Mary tried to think back to those days, and she couldn't remember it. She remembered something quite different.

She remembered being raised on an island called Japan. Mary remembered sitting in a classroom filled with sapes, except they didn't call themselves sapes. They called themselves "humans." She was taught a history that had something to do with a "British Empire." It was like the Kromagg Dynasty, except for homo sapiens. She remembered learning about how the British Empire took over the world and lasted for hundreds of years. Even her island was a part of the Empire. It was very strange.

But not as strange as the day she remembered as the Kromagg's first appearance on her world. She could almost see herself on a playground one morning, looking up at the red holes forming in the skies above her. All the other sape children were watching with her. Even the teachers stopped to watch.

Then the ships came. They were terrifying to her. So strange and sleek with wings, like fish swimming through the air. They emerged from the holes and began striking people with odd beams of light. Whoever touched the beams fell to the ground, like they were asleep. But some of them were screaming and crying. Mary ran towards her favorite teacher, yelling for her to get up.

Then the beam hit her. Mary felt as if her entire body suddenly weighed thousands of pounds. Her legs gave out. She fell over. Mary lay flat on the concrete, but the pressure increased. It was like something was pulling her body down. She could hardly breathe. Dizziness swept over her.

Then a radio that had been playing music crackled with static. The static faded into a deep voice that spoke in Japanese. But there were other voices mixed with it, that spoke other languages. One she recognized as English from her studies. All of the voices were saying the same thing.

"People of Earth," they said, "we are the Kromaggs. We have come to your world to claim it for our empire. Your petty governments are hereby dissolved. Your nations are now ruled by the Kromagg Dynasty. You cannot harm us. You cannot stop us. Resist us, and you will die. That is all."

Mary couldn't move her head, but she could see one of the ships landing in the playground. Dust tickled her face as the ship's jets faded. A hatch opened. Someone climbed out.

It was a monster. It was shaped like a man, but was stooped over slightly as it walked. Its longer-than-normal arms ended in gnarled fingers that were curved like claws, holding odd devices. The creature looked around through beady eyes embedded in a misshapen face. It wrinkled a nose that was twisted upright. It reminded her of something she had once seen in a zoo.

Then she remembered. An ape. The monster reminded her of an ape. As she faded into unconsciousness, Mary wondered if she was seeing a Kromagg for the first time.

*

Mary remembered the next few days as one of the greatest horrors of her life. By the time the beams were shut off, the Kromaggs were everywhere. All the world leaders had been slaughtered. Kromaggs proclaimed themselves as their replacements. The Earth had had no time to even put up a fight.

Mary had been herded with the others at her school into large cages. Inside the cages, Mary had found her mother. She explained to Mary with an odd voice that her father had tried to attack one of the Kromaggs. The monsters had used one of their devices to kill him. Mary's father was dead.

After that, life had become an endless wait in the dark interior of the cage. There was no food or water given. Some people began to die of starvation or thirst. Among the huddled masses, Mary and her mother heard rumors about the Kromaggs. It was said that they were monsters from another world that was just like Earth, but different. Mary didn't understand that one. But she did understand the rumors that the Kromaggs had conquered the outside world.

Occasionally, Kromagg soldiers would come and take away some of the other sapes. None of them tried to put up much of a fight. They had all learned that it was useless to resist. All they could do was wait.

More rumors came that the Kromaggs were going through the population of Earth, sifting through them like bread crumbs. Some of the humans were being carted away as slaves. Some were being used for labor. Some were even turning traitor, helping the Kromaggs with their conquest of Earth.

But the most horrible rumor Mary heard was that some were being selected for food. People whispered that the Kromaggs considered human eyes a delicacy. Mary's mother told her not to listen to them. They were just the ramblings of a frightened people, she said. But sometimes Mary wondered.

Then the day came when the door of the cage swung open on squealing hinges. Mary awoke from sleeping in her mother's arms to see the Kromaggs silhouetted in the doorway. Mary watched their beady eyes sweep over the room. She waited, as she always did, for them to stop on someone. That person would be the next to go. Mary could feel the fear among the others. They were all waiting for the eyes to stop.

They did. On Mary.

Mary's mother screamed as the Kromaggs charged into the cage. They grabbed Mary with knobby fingers that pressed too tightly around her arms. She felt her mother's grip as well, struggling to hang on. Her mother was begging, pleading with the creatures to take her instead. But the Kromaggs kept pulling until Mary was ripped from her mother's arms.

She yelled at the top of her lungs, calling for her mother to save her. But the Kromaggs hauled Mary away, out of the cage. As Mary was carried off down a glowing hallway, she could see her mother being held back by three Kromagg soldiers.

That was the last time Mary saw her mother, and the last time she was to live anything close to a normal life.

PART TWO

Mary walked between two Kromagg soldiers down a long hallway. The building had once been her school, but not after the Kromaggs had gotten through with it. Now the hall echoed with screams of men and women that came from every direction. The Kromaggs led her to what had once been her classroom. The pungent smell of the Kromaggs' bodies told her humans no longer inhabited it.

There were more Kromaggs in the room. They were herding screaming humans through the windows into cages. The cages were suspended from the manta-shaped ships that would fly away into the red holes in the clouds.

But one Kromagg was seated on a chair like a throne. His hands were on his knees. He glared down at Mary with his surprisingly human eyes set into a simian face. The Kromagg guards brought her to a halt in front of the creature.

The Kromagg spoke. "What is your name, little girl?"

Mary found her voice somewhere deep inside her. It came out as a stammer, as if just as frightened as she was. "M-m-mary. Mary..."

"Your last name is of no importance," the Kromagg said. "You will be called simply Mary. You have been chosen from your pitiful race to be elevated to a superior level, one which will serve us. You will be trained and educated in the Kromagg ways. From now on, your life belongs to the Kromagg Dynasty."

"No," Mary whispered, then spoke louder, trying to summon her courage. "What about my mother? My family? My home?"

"This is not your home, Mary," the Kromagg said. "You must put this world behind you. Glorious things await you. Take her away."

The Kromaggs seized her arms. Mary tried to twist out of their grip, but they were incredibly strong. They began to drag her away towards one of the windows. A cage was suspended outside it, hanging from another Manta ship. This one was empty. She screamed, but the Kromaggs ignored her as they threw her into the cage. The door slammed shut. Even though she couldn't see a lock on it, she couldn't get it to open.

Then she was being swept away from the school. The ground retreated away from her as the manta ship hauled her into the sky. She looked up to see they were headed towards one of the red vortexes in the clouds. A shiver swept through her as she tried to imagine what was on the other side. What was happening to her? The Kromagg said she had been chosen. For what? Labor? Slavery? Food?

The skyhole was huge now. It looked strangely beautiful, a fiery red that poured into itself like water flowing into the drain of her bathtub. A brisk wind roared out of it, showering her with the harsh smell of electricity. There was a point of light inside, one that grew as they drew near. Mary pressed herself harder against the floor of her cage.

Then there was a blast of light. Mary and the ship were in a strange tunnel, one filled with lights and colors, a tunnel that twisted and bent in confusing and disorienting ways. She was thrown around the inside of the cage, banging into the bars with loud clangs, bringing shocks of pain. Then the ship was flying towards another point of light.

It exploded out into a blue sky again. At first, Mary thought they were back home. Then she looked down and realized her city was gone. The island of Japan was nothing but a huge forest. The manta ship was flying down towards it, the cage swinging back and forth underneath. At first, Mary thought it was going to crash into the trees. Then she saw movement.

There was a city among the clouds. Houses had been built among the branches, made of leaves and vines. Wooden walkways, held together with rope, connected the treetops. More of the Kromaggs walked among them, carrying things, going about a normal life. Mary could even see what looked like Kromagg children chasing each other around a platform.

The manta ship flew low over the trees. The engines blew up the earthy smell of tree bark. As it passed overhead, the Kromaggs below stopped what they were doing to watch. Then they picked up rocks and threw them.

Mary shrank back as rocks banged against her cage. Some of them got through the bars to hit her exposed arms and face. She tried to avoid them, but the rocks came from everywhere. Eventually, she just curled into a ball and let them hit her, trying to ignore the pain.

She became aware that the Kromaggs were yelling something at the top of their lungs, as if in one voice. It sounded like one word, over and over again. "Sape! Sape! Sape! Sape!" She didn't know what it meant.

The manta ship ducked through a hole in the treecover. It was flying through the city now, through a gauntlet of Kromaggs who jeered, spat, and stoned her. Mary peeked through her bloody fingers at the creatures of all shapes and sizes. An old Kromagg supporting himself with a cane. A young female Kromagg cradling a baby. All of them looked at her with complete loathing and hatred, like she would look at a snake or a insect.

The manta ship finally slowed to hover over one house. Two Kromaggs stood on a platform outside the hut, looking up at the cage. They were smiling. It was the first time Mary had ever seen a Kromagg smile.

The other Kromaggs stopped pelting Mary and seemed to go back to their normal lives. The ship began to descend towards the platform. The cage came to rest on the planks that formed its surface. Mary heard a click. The rope tying the cage to the ship was disconnected. The manta ship rose up and flew off into the clouds.

Mary watched the Kromagg couple lurch towards her. One was a male with white fur around his mouth that reminded her of a beard. The other was a female with a ponytail of golden fur that ran down to her back. Unlike the Kromaggs who attacked her world, they weren't wearing skintight jumpsuits. Their clothes looked woven from vines and leaves. They hunched over to look through the bars of the cage at her.

The male spoke. "Don't be afraid. We won't hurt you."

He reached towards the door of the cage. He did something to it that caused it to swing open.

Mary pressed herself against the other side of the cage as the Kromagg reached into it. His hand stretched out towards her face. She tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go, until she could do nothing but close her eyes and wait for the blow.

The hand touched her cheek. It was so gentle and soft. It began to stroke her face in a soothing pattern.

"It's all right," the male said. "We're not going to hurt you."

The female crouched to smile into the cage at her with a mouthful of crooked teeth. "We're here to help you."

Her smile collapsed into horror. "Oh, my...those wounds could get infected. Gorn, quickly, bring the medicine."

The male nodded and ran into the hut with a wobbly pace. Meanwhile, the female reached out and took Mary's hand.

"Please," the female Kromagg said. "Come out. We promise not to hurt you. We'll never hurt you. Do you understand that, Mary? We will never hurt you."

Mary sniffled. She wanted to hate these creatures, to fight and hurt them for what they did to her world and her people. But they were being so kind to her. Kinder than any Kromagg she had seen so far.

The female reached into the pouch on the front of her clothing. She pulled out a strange purple fruit with pink, bumpy skin. The female made biting motions towards it, then held it out to Mary.

"You must be hungry," she said. "Come, eat."

Mary was hungry. So hungry. Her mouth watered as she inhaled the sweet aroma of the fruit. And despite her attempts to resist, Mary found herself reaching for it. The female pulled the fruit away from her, ever-so-gently, forcing Mary to reach farther. Eventually, the female drew the fruit out of the cage, taking a step back. Mary had to climb out of the cage to reach it. She did, mesmerized and controlled by the gnawing hunger inside her.

Mary stepped out onto the platform suspended in the trees. Its sturdiness surprised her. The female knelt and pressed the fruit into Mary's hand. Mary looked up into her smiling face, then bit deep into the fruit. Rivers of juice flowed out into her mouth, along with chunks of delicious pulp. Mary ate ravenously, barely able to keep from stuffing it whole down her throat.

The male Kromagg came waddling out of the hut again. He was carrying a leather bag. When he came near, the female opened the bag and drew out a handful of plastic tubes. The female took Mary's arm and squeezed a tube over it. A white paste oozed out onto her slashed arm. The pain immediately eased.

"This will stop the bleeding," the female said. "And prevent infection."

Mary swallowed. Her hunger was satisfied enough to begin to think clearly again. She realized she no longer feared these creatures. They had been kind to her like no other Kromagg, and they smiled so broadly at her. She felt safe with them, for some reason.

Mary looked up at the treetops above her. A monkey leapt from branch to branch, chattering loudly. A flock of birds sailed overhead, ringing out with cries.

"Where am I?" Mary asked.

"Earth," the male said. "Our earth. This is the Kromagg homeworld."

"Homeworld?"

"All these things will become clear to you. You will be educated in the ways of the Kromagg, and how you can be a part of our glorious Dynasty."

Mary looked at the couple, the juices of the fruit drying and turning sticky around her mouth. "Who are you?"

The female's smile broadened. "My name is Chim. This is Gorn. We are your new parents." PART THREE

Mary sat at the back of the classroom. She always sat at the back of the classroom. She couldn't stand the feel of angry glares on her back during classes, the poking in her neck from the other students. She was the only human...no, homo sapien...in the entire school. On the entire planet, as far as she knew. And no one ever let her forget it.

Right now, Mary was in biology class. She watched intently as the Kromagg teacher gestured towards charts mounted on an easel. One was a cross-section of a Kromagg. The other was a cross-section of a homo sapien. The old teacher spoke with a halting, but determined voice. He was speaking in Kromagg, which Mary was fluent in.

"The Kromagg," he was saying, "is the finest specimen of life in the multiverse. It is the pinnacle of evolution. Its every movement is the epitome of grace and elegance. Its strength is unsurpassed. Its intelligence is always at its peak."

The teacher shuffled over to the homo sapien diagram and whacked it with his pointer. "This, on the other hand, is the bottom of evolution. A homo sapien. It is the result of a perversion of the natural order, coming from a world where an alternate race wiped out the innocent Kromagg forebears and devolved into this hideous form."

The teacher tapped the diagram. "Note the angular posture. The hideous face. The weakened musculature. And, above all, the extremely small cranium. The homo sapien has a documented high IQ of fifteen. I believe this explains Miss Mary's poor grades."

Everyone began to laugh. They all turned and looked at her, pointing as they giggled. Mary tried to laugh with them, but she could never get it to come out right.

When they had finished laughing, the teacher continued. "In short, the homo sapien is weak, ugly, stupid, and cowardly. It is a freak. A genetic accident from another world. This is why the Kromagg Dynasty must seek out worlds where this monstrosity has taken hold. As civilized beings, it is our duty to ensure that these...things do not contaminate the multiverse with their presence. If we must exterminate every last one of them...then so be it. We will be better off without them."

A horn blew in the distance. The teacher nodded.

"Very well," he said. "That will be all for today. Dismissed."

The students got up off the floor, running towards the vine-curtained exit. Mary hung back, letting the others go on ahead. She always tried this, and it never worked, but she had no other option.

As always, a few of the children would remain in the classroom. They just stood, glaring at her, waiting for her to go ahead of them. Their upturned noses wrinkled above vicious smiles filled with gnarled teeth. Mary tried smiling back. Then she took a deep breath and walked through the door ahead of them.

The hands slammed into her back. She was propelled forward, flying into a puddle of mud. It sloshed around her, covering her face and body with slime.

One of them called out. "Who do you think you are, sape? Think you can walk ahead of us? Think you're better than us, freak?"

Mary turned and wiped some of the gunk out of her eyes. The other children were gathered around her in a circle. There was no escape. There never was. The children glared down at her with their beady eyes, thick lips curled into a snarl. They had their hands behind their backs, but she knew what they held.

"I'm sorry," Mary whispered. "I...I didn't mean..."

"She thinks she's better than us," one of the Kromagg children yelled. "The sape thinks she's better than us. Well, you're not! You're a freak! Freak! Freak! Freak!"

The other children took up the chant, as they always did. The word drilled into her mind, over and over. Mary looked down, fighting back the tears. She could see her reflection in the puddle, and her gut twisted in revulsion at the sight of her face.

One Kromagg boy spat deliberately on Mary's dress, then yelled, "Get her!"

And the rocks came out from behind their backs. The children began to pelt her, hurling jagged stones down at her. Mary climbed out of the mud and pushed past two of the children. She ran, stones pounding into her back.

Other Kromaggs on the street stopped hauling fruit and goods to pick up rocks of their own. They began to stone her as well, amidst yelling, spitting, and laughing. Mary kept running, despite the pain. She knew there was only one place in the entire world where she would be safe. The one place where she felt anything like love.

Mary ran to the hut she called home. Some of the children were still chasing her, hurling rocks at her back, trying to knock her down. Mary reached her door and burst through the vines draped over it. Only then did she allow herself to collapse onto the floor.

Her Kromagg mother, Chim, was sitting in a basket, weaving a new bowl. Her father, Gorn, was hammering out a new blade for the fruit-picker.

Chim looked up at Mary, her eyes widening. "Oh, dear. Gorn! Mary's home! Go get the salves."

Gorn dropped his work and hurried off to where they kept the medicine.

Chim knelt to take Mary into her arms. Mary looked back through the vines to the platform outside. The Kromaggs and children had stopped throwing stones and were going back to their lives. They never violated the sanctuary of her home. She didn't know why, but believed it was her parents that stopped them. Somehow.

Mary felt the tears well up in her eyes. She couldn't hold back. She began to cry.

"Shh," Chim whispered in English, rocking her back and forth. "It's all right. You're safe now. No one's going to hurt you here."

"Why?" Mary whispered. "Why do they hate me so much?"

Chim brushed back a lock of Mary's hair to look down into her eyes. "Now, walnut, you know why."

Mary closed her eyes and nodded.

"Come on," Chim said. "Tell me. Why do they hate you?"

"Because I'm a monster," Mary whispered.

"And?" Chim prodded.

"A freak."

Chim drew her delicate fingers over Mary's cheek, cooling it. "That's right. And what do you deserve?"

Mary squeezed her eyes shut tighter. "D-Death." Chim pressed her forehead against Mary's, hugging her. "Very good. But we won't hurt you, even though you deserve it. We'll never hurt you. And do you know why?"

This was the part Mary loved best about this speech. She looked up into Chim's eyes, a smile breaking through the pain on her face. "Because you love me."

Chim smiled. "That's right. We love you. We'll always love you."

Gorn returned with the tubes of salve. Mary held out her arms and allowed her parents to spread the ointment onto her body. It always made her feel better.

"So," Chim said, "what did you learn in school today?"

"Lots," Mary said. "They taught us about the Battle of Earth 67, where we wiped out those sapes with the weird heads. And they taught us how the Kromagg Dynasty existed for billions of years, since the beginning of time. And I learned how stupid the homo sapiens are."

"Very good," Gorn said. "You're learning well, Mary. You'll make an excellent member of the Dynasty."

Mary leaned forward to let him massage ointment into her back. "Father, you always say that. What am I going to be when I grow up?"

"A great member of the Dynasty," Gorn said. "You're going to aid the Kromaggs in their quest to exterminate the sapes. Because you look and talk like the sapes, they will trust you. And you'll be able to do things we can't. Someday, you'll understand. But not today."

Gorn finished and patted her neck. "All right, off to your cage until supper, walnut."

Mary got up and headed for the corner of the hut where she kept her cage. It was a nice cage, better than the one she had slept in the first few years. This was a little bigger, about three feet by three feet, and had a water-bottle attached to it so she could drink without having to bother her parents.

Mary opened the cage and was about to get in when she froze. A thought struck her. She turned back to her parents.

"Father," she said, "why am I a sape?"

Her parents looked at each other with a mixture of fear and resignation. Gorn sighed and settled back on his haunches. He patted the wooden floor.

"Come here, walnut," he said. "It's time we told you the truth."

Mary crawled over to him and sat down. He pulled her into his arms, setting her on his lap.

"Mary," Gorn said, "a long, long time ago, many, many years, you used to live on a planet full of homo sapiens. Like you see in the holograms. Your world was a barbaric place, filled with wars and crime and fighting and people hurting each other. Because homo sapiens aren't intelligent enough to run their lives without us. Then, one day, our peace ships came to your world. We showered gifts and love on your people, welcoming them to the Dynasty. And your people saw the blessing of our presence in their lives. And, of course, sapes are so cowardly that they could hardly put up a fight."

He nuzzled her neck, causing Mary to giggle.

"So," Gorn continued, "they joined our Dynasty. Most of them. Some of them rebelled and had to be punished. That's always the way. That's why we have slaves and human eyes to eat. But most of them saw our superior wisdom, and reaped rich blessings of medicine, technology, and food. Some of them decided to give their children to us. Because homo sapiens don't really love their children. They only breed, like animals. But we took pity on those children and took them and raised them as our own. That's why you're here. Your biological mother didn't want you."

Mary felt a pang in her heart. "Really?"

"That's right," Chim said in a soft voice. "Do you remember that, Mary? Do you remember your mother beating you and hurting you? Every day? Calling you vile and cruel names?"

Mary closed her eyes. She thought she remembered something. Someone screaming. Pain...being in a confined place, pelted by hard and sharp things. And she thought she saw her mother there. Maybe. It wasn't clear. She couldn't understand why she couldn't remember it.

But she said, "Yes," anyway.

Chim smiled. "Good. Very good. It may not be clear now, but keep thinking about it, and you'll remember. Always remember, Mary, that we are your real parents. Not the sapes. We selected you to be with us. You belong with us."

Mary nodded, feeling washed away in a tidal wave of love.

Gorn patted her back. "All right, time to go back to your cage. And this time we mean it."

Mary giggled and crawled back into her cage. The door shut and locked behind her automatically. She curled up in a tight ball on the floor to sleep.

When she woke up, her parents were dead. PART FOUR

Mary opened her eyes. She could smell blood. Kromagg blood. There was something wet on the ground beneath her. Blood that wasn't her own.

The house was filled with Kromagg soldiers. They paced the room, murmuring to each other, picking up things off the floor. Mary thought she saw one of the soldiers pouring a red liquid onto the ground, something that looked like blood.

Mary sat up and took hold of the bars of her cage. "What's going on? Where's my mother and father?"

The Kromaggs froze. They looked at each other. One of them, wearing the uniform of a sergeant, lurched towards her.

"You are the homo sapien, Mary," he said in his deepvoice.

Mary nodded.

"Your parents are dead," the Kromagg said.

Mary felt ice flowing through her body from her stomach, down her arms and legs, to chill her fingers and toes.

"No," Mary whispered.

The Kromagg's expression was blank as he said, "Yes. They were chopped into pieces with this."

The sergeant held up a huge knife with a blade a foot long. It was stained a harsh red that seemed to glow in the sunlight.

"No," Mary said.

"I'm surprised you didn't wake up," the sergeant said. "The neighbors heard them screaming for hours..."

"Noooo!" Mary screamed. She drained her lungs with the scream until she wasn't breathing, her chest and body seized up, trying to scream with no air until a dizziness swept over her that caused her to pass out.

*

Mary felt so small in a chair in an empty room. She stared at her feet, but couldn't see them. She only saw her parents, smiling at her, bathing her, healing her wounds, giving her love. And now they were dead.

A Kromagg entered the room. He wore the skintight uniform of a soldier. He took a seat in a chair across from Mary. He stared at her for moment, allowing silence to fill the room.

"Your parents are dead," the soldier said.

Mary closed her eyes. "I know."

"I have been assigned to explain the circumstances surrounding their death." The Kromagg opened a notebook in his hand and began to read it. "Last night, a terrorist group of homo sapiens stole a Manta Interdimensional Cruiser. Somehow, they managed to breach our defenses and reach our homeworld. They came in undetected, flying low, to seek out something to kill, to feed their hideous bloodlust. They stumbled onto your parents' home while you were asleep. And the murder began."

Mary looked up into the soldier's beady eyes. "My...my parents...were killed...by humans?"

"Homo sapiens," the Kromagg corrected. "Yes."

"But...why?"

"Because that is what sapes do. They destroy all that is good and decent in the multiverse."

Mary's breathing became harsh as she thought of a sape, like she had seen in the holograms. Leaping with their too-long gait, swinging and hacking with the bloody knife, hurting her mother and father again and again as their hideous faces twisted in joy...

"We interviewed the homo sapiens," the Kromagg continued, "before we killed them. We told them who they had killed. Even showed them your picture to let them know whose life they had affected with their atrocities. The sapes said they didn't care. They laughed when I described your misery. And they spat on your photo, saying they would have killed you, too, if they had noticed your cage."

Mary's breathing grew quicker. She felt something swelling inside her. A feeling of anger like she had never felt before. The rage was a balloon that expanded to fill her entire being.

The Kromagg held out two photos. One was of an elderly homo sapien man with a wrinkled face. His lip was curled in a cruel sneer. The other was of a young homo sapien woman with a defiant grin.

"Here," the Kromagg said, "are the sapes who killed your parents."

Mary snatched the photos out of his hand. She began to rip them into pieces. With each tear, her anger grew, her tears flowed, until she was sobbing and shredding with a ferocity that she had never felt before. When the pieces were too small for her to rip, she threw them on the ground. Mary jumped up and down on the confetti, imagining it was the homo sapiens she was crushing beneath her heels. All of them. Every last ugly, stupid, monstrous one of them. When she finally stopped, she was breathing so heavy that she felt faint.

The Kromagg seemed pleased, smiling with a cool intensity. "Well, that settles that. I will be going now. You will be placed with new foster parents, hopefully ones who will care for you the way your old ones did. Although that is rare, it does occasionally happen. Sometimes."

The soldier stood and began to turn away. Then he stopped and turned back to look at Mary.

"Oh, one more thing," the soldier said, "I am going to a world called Earth 113. It is a deserted world where we store, interrogate, and eliminate captured homo sapiens. We also have an institute there for training homo sapiens as weapons against the sapes. I thought, perhaps, you might care to..."

"Take me with you," Mary breathed. "I want to hurt them. I want to hurt the sapes, kill them, wipe them out, grind them into dust under my feet. Make them pay for killing my mommy and daddy."

The Kromagg didn't hide the jagged smile that twisted his thick lips. He held out a twisted hand. "Very well, Mary. Come along."

Mary took the hand. She followed the soldier out of the room, down a hall towards a waiting Manta ship. This time, she was allowed inside. She walked into the control room where two cylindrical beds waited amidst an aromatic fog. The soldier guided her to climb into one. It sealed over her, enclosing her in the cool, downy inside. She felt the shudder as the manta ship began to fly away, into the sky.

The inside of the cylinder was a shiny metal, one that created a perfect reflection. Mary looked into her homo sapien face with its rounded nose, its thin lips, its light skin, and big eyes. She lashed out with a fist, striking the metal. She punched it again and again, as hard as she could. The metal warped and bent into a shape that twisted her reflection. When the reflection was so mangled that she could barely recognize it, Mary stopped and rolled over.

She hated homo sapiens. She hated them more than she ever had in her life. So much that she couldn't bear to look at her own face and be reminded that she was even related to them Vicious, ugly, idiotic brutes.

She would make them pay.

*

Mary was strapped into a complex assortment of pipes and wires. Her arms and legs were spread wide, making her body form an X. She was face-down, staring into the floor, her back exposed to a spidery collection of machines mounted on the ceiling.

A voice echoed through the chamber. "This will be the first stage of your training, Mary. A chip will be implanted into your brain. It will allow you to read our thoughts, and us yours. You will speak for us with the sapes so that we will not have to lower ourselves to speak their nonsensical language. The operation will be painful."

Mary spoke around the tubes in her mouth. "Will it aid in the suffering of the homo sapien race?"

"Yes."

"Then do it."

Mary heard the whine of equipment starting up. A hum sounded behind her that grew louder and louder.

Mary grit her teeth. She would endure. She would endure anything if it would result in the suffering of even one homo sapien. They would all pay for the slaughter of the only ones who ever loved her. PART FIVE

The institute was a vast network of white buildings, each dedicated to a certain type of training. One taught the art of interrogation. Another, the art of torture. Another, the art of hand-to-hand combat. And more.

Mary's days were spent moving from one building to another, attending classes where she soaked up knowledge like a sponge. She studied all the time, even at nights in her cage by the light of a lamp in the corridor. She was determined to be the best Traitor in the Kromagg Dynasty. What she wanted more than anything was to be chosen to serve in the maximum-security prison where the homo sapiens were kept. There, she would achieve her goal of punishing as many sapes as she could for the deaths of her parents.

There were other homo sapiens at the institute. They wandered the corridors, just like her, sat in classrooms absorbing knowledge. Mary never spoke to them. They never spoke to her. Every homo sapien in the institute shared her disgust with their own race. Mary never found out what drove the others. She didn't care. Whatever it was couldn't be as bad as what the sapes had done to her.

Mary spent her adolescence growing up in the institute. The greatest moment of her life came on her eighteenth birthday. She had been reading in her cage by the light of the lamp. She could hear the snores of the other sapes in the cages above, below, and across from her, but ignored them.

She was struggling to master the art of detecting emotions with her biochip. Thoughts were easy. Those came to her in an instant. But emotions took special training, and didn't come easy for her. She studied the formulas in her textbook, trying to memorize the patterns so she could recognize them.

A shadow fell over her. She looked up to see a Kromagg looming over her.

"Mary," the Kromagg said, "you will come with me."

"Yes, master," Mary said.

The cage-door opened. Mary uncurled her body, wincing as her bones popped in protest at her cramped confinement. She had considered asking for a large cage as she grew, but didn't want to sound like a whiner. At least she had room to shift around in her cage. Some of the Traitors couldn't even move.

When she was standing, the Kromagg headed down the corridor of the living quarters. Mary followed him, her bare feet tapping softly on the cool metal floor. She passed rows and rows of cages, all filled with loathsome homo sapiens like her. It was a sickening sight, but one she was getting used to.

They turned a corner and passed a display case filled with skulls. They were the skulls of other races that had been wiped out by the Kromagg Dynasty. The sight of them always made Mary smile.

Mary was led into a vast chamber. A Kromagg sat in a throne, hands resting on his knees, glaring down at her. Mary recognized him as the headmaster of the institute. The Kromagg was flanked by two more guards, watching her closely.

Mary took her place in front of the headmaster, bowing her head. "You sent for me, my master?"

"Mary," the headmaster said, "you have trained among us for eight years. You have learned our ways and teachings faster and more efficiently than any other Traitor in our care."

Mary bowed her head again. "Thank you, master." She dared not even think of what this could mean.

"You have truly distinguished yourself," the headmaster continued, "as one of our finest achievements. For this reason, we have decided you are ready for graduation. You are ready to serve at the prison."

Mary bowed her head once more, allowing a tear of joy to trickle down her cheek. "Thank you, master."

"You will be taken to a holding cell where you will be transferred to the prison. I congratulate you on your success."

"Thank you, master." Mary straightened and walked out of the chamber.

She allowed herself to be led down a series of corridors to another section of the institute. Empty cells ran along its length. There were no bars, only force fields. There were beds inside them, too.

Mary felt a stab of shock as the guards led her to one of the cells. He swept a small plastic card through the force field, causing it to collapse.

"Me?" Mary whispered. "I get to go in there?"

"Yes," the guard said.

Mary took a step into the cell. Then another. When she was through the doorway, the guard used the card to bring the force field up again. Then the two guards trooped away.

Mary wandered around the room, her eyes wide. It was amazing. It wasn't a cage. She couldn't remember ever living in a world without cages. To be left alone in a room like this...it was more than she ever dreamed.

Mary sat down on the bed. It was soft. She lay down on it, relishing the lack of bars digging into her ribs. It was so wonderful. So this was the life of a real Traitor.

A massive explosion shook the corridor. Mary was thrown off her bed by the concussion which caused the walls to shudder. As she lay on the floor, Mary could hear shooting and gunfire. But the shouts weren't in Kromagg. They sounded like English.

Three people came running into the corridor. They were wearing heavy armor that clanked on their bodies as they ran. Huge rifles under their arms rattled off bullets that echoed down the hallway. But Mary was most horrified by the realization that these people were homo sapiens.

They backed down the hallway, firing rounds. One of them, a gray-haired man, looked into Mary's cell. His eyes widened.

"Hey," he yelled, "I found her! Bring that torch over here!"

A second female sape ran up to the force field. She began to cut into the wall surrounding it with a blowtorch from her belt.

The gray-haired man smiled at Mary through the field. "Don't worry, honey. We'll get outta there."

Mary scrambled backwards on her hands and knees, pressing herself against the wall behind her. The horror was what she was seeing almost paralyzed her. Homo sapiens with guns. Ugly, brutish homo sapiens cutting their way into her cell so they could slaughter her like they slaughtered her parents.

The gray-haired man's smile faded. "Hey, you okay, Mary?"

"Stay away from me," Mary said in a voice that trembled.

"What's wrong?"

"I said, stay away!" Mary screamed. "I won't let you kill me! I'll tear you apart with my bare hands."

The man held up his hands while his third partner kept his rifle blazing down the corridor. "Hey, hey, take it easy. Nobody's gonna hurt you. We're here to rescue you."

"Rescue me?" Mary asked. "From what?"

The man laughed as if it was obvious. "Well...from the 'Maggs, that's what. From this cage you're in. From this life you've been forced to lead."

Mary spoke through clenched teeth. "Nobody forced me into this life. I *chose* to be here."

The man's face turned hard and cold. "Oh, really? Did you choose to be ripped from your mother's arms as a child? Did you choose to be stoned and spat on all your life?"

"I wasn't ripped from my mother's arms. My mother gave me away because she didn't want me."

The gray-haired man looked down at the woman who was still cutting a hole in the wall. Then he looked back at Mary again. "Is...is that what they told you?"

"Yes," Mary snarled. "And I was stoned because I deserved to be stoned, just like you deserve to die, like all sapes deserve to die. You're all ugly, vicious, stupid freaks, and I'm going to make sure you're all wiped out."

"What have these monsters done to you?" the man whispered.

"Opened my eyes. Given me a life of worth, despite what I deserve. And despite what your kind did to me."

"Us?" The gray-haired man ducked as a laserblast flew over his head. But he returned his intense gaze to Mary.

"You killed my parents," Mary said. "A bunch of rebels, just like you, hacked them to pieces. A sweet, kind Kromagg couple who gave me the only love I've ever known."

The gray-haired man looked off down the corridor. Mary could hear the shouts of Kromagg reinforcements marching closer. The man held out a hand towards Mary, as if trying to reach through the force field that shimmered between them.

"Okay," he said, "listen up, because I only have time to say this once. The 'Maggs have been lying to you. Your whole life is a lie. You were taken from Earth 234, literally torn from your mother. Your Kromagg foster parents *are not dead.* The 'Maggs faked their deaths to complete your conditioning to loath all humans. Everyone in this institute went through the same thing. Don't you get it? It's a trick!"

"No," Mary whispered. "You're lying. I...I saw their blood..."

"Faked," the man said. "Your so-called parents came back after you left, cleaned up, and waited for the next kid to be brought in that they could corrupt with the same scam."

"No," Mary repeated. She couldn't think of anything else to say.

The man held out his arms to encompass the cell. "You think this is life? Living in cages and cells, being pelted by rocks, insulted all your life? You're a pawn, Mary, a knife the Kromaggs forged in misery. Your misery. They've manipulated you all your life to turn you into this...this thing. The Kromaggs need humans to interrogate prisoners, infiltrate rebel bases, maintain order on their hundreds of worlds. So they take us as children, raise and warp us, to make perfect, loyal servants."

"No," Mary yelled. "The Kromaggs love me..."

"Don't you understand?" the man screamed. "It doesn't have to be this way! We're offering you a chance to live a normal life. You've lived among the Kromaggs since the beginning. You know their ways, their language, their secrets, their homeworld. You've got a chip in your head that can read Kromagg minds. Tell us what they're thinking and planning. We need you. Your value to the resistance would be beyond measure. That's one of the reasons we're here."

The man clenched his fists. "But the main reason we came is that we want to bring you home. To your mother. Your real mother. She escaped and joined us. She tipped us off to this place. She's been searching for you for fifteen years. She loves you, really loves you, not like these monsters."

The woman said, "Got it," just as the force field collapsed with a humming noise.

The man reached out to Mary through the open doorway. "Come with us, Mary. Come to a world you've never known, where these apes are the freaks, not you. Where you can be happy, sleep on beds, live the life you want to lead, not the one the 'Maggs choose for you. Please." PART SIX

Mary stared at the three homo sapiens in the corridor. The third one was still shooting, his teeth bared as his rifle shuddered. But the woman and the gray-haired man only stood, watching, waiting. Mary tried to take in all that she had been told. So many confusing images. She...seemed to remember something about being taken from her mother. It seemed more real than her memories of being tortured by her. She remembered another time of joy and playfulness, a time that seemed farther away than fifteen years. She remembered being happy. And she remembered the Kromagg soldiers pouring something on the floor of her hut, something that looked exactly like the blood caking it already.

And she remembered Chim and Gorn. She remembered their gentle touch. Their smiles. Their ointments that made the pain fade. And she remembered the misery of their deaths.

"No," Mary said.

The gray-haired man took a step towards her. "Mary, please, listen to what I'm..."

"I said, no," Mary yelled. "You're lying. You're all lying! And even if you're not, I don't care. I hate sapes. I hate you, and I hate myself, and I wish we all just died. The idea of living among you traitors in a world full of people like me turns my stomach. Get away from me! Guards! Guards!"

The corridor was suddenly filled with Kromagg soldiers. They easily wrestled the rifles away from the homo sapiens, clubbing them into submission. When the three homo sapiens were lying on the ground, the headmaster walked into view.

He looked down at the sapes, then up at Mary. "Well done. You have passed your final test."

Mary looked up at him, her eyes widening. "T-test?"

"Yes," the headmaster said. "We allowed the homo sapiens to learn your location, knowing they would try to mount a rescue attempt. We allowed them to reach you, knowing they would attempt to talk you into leaving. This was your final test to see if you would remain loyal to us. And you passed."

The headmaster glared down at the soldiers. "These homo sapiens will be eliminated once we force them into telling us the location of their base of operations. There, all rebels will be killed. Including your biological mother." The headmaster fixed his cold, beady eyes on Mary. "Does this bother you?"

Mary swallowed, then lowered her eyes. "No, master."

"Well done. Take them away."

The Kromaggs picked up the soldiers and began to drag them away.

"It's not too late," the gray-haired man yelled. "You can still escape. Now that you know the truth. Don't let them tell you any different. Be proud to be human! Be proud!"

Mary watched him get dragged off out of sight. She looked at the headmaster. Her mind was spinning with confusion She needed answers.

"Master," she said, "is what the sape said true? Are my parents still alive?"

"No," the headmaster said. "They died, horribly, at the hands of the homo sapiens."

Mary bowed her head. "Thank you, master. I know you would not lie to me."

"Never." The headmaster turned and lurched away. "Come. I have something to show you."

Mary followed her headmaster through the corridors of the prison. She was feeling better, everything clicking back into place. It made more sense, anyway, that the homo sapiens had been lying. More sense than to believe that her entire life had been a carefully-planned lie.

*

It was green. So much green. Plants, trees, flowers, rivers. Mary walked into the geodesic dome that contained an entire forest. Wonder and amazement flowed through her. She hadn't seen so much life since she had left the Kromagg Homeworld for Earth 113, years ago.

And what life. Birds chirped and sang in the trees. Grass rustled, thick and lustrous, from breezes caused by artificial fans. Mary knelt to inhale the perfume of a delicate orchid sprouting from between two rocks.

"It's so beautiful," Mary whispered.

The headmaster's hand rested on her shoulder as he said, "And it is yours."

Mary looked up at him, her eyes wide and burning with tears. "Mine?"

"Yours," the headmaster said, smiling around a crippled mass of teeth. "You have served us well for many years. Now you receive your reward. This garden shall be your sanctuary. There are no cameras here. No microphones. No cages. Here, you shall be truly free."

"Freedom," Mary whispered. A tear rolled down her cheek. The freedom to run. The freedom to shout. The freedom to listen to silence. It was then that she realized she had never known freedom in her life.

The headmaster's grip tightened on her shoulder, triggering a slight ache. "But this sanctuary has a condition. It will be a reward. Serve us well and you will be allowed time to spend here. Disobey or displease us, and you shall remain in your cage."

Mary swallowed as the burning sensation spread to her throat. She now knew she could never go back to her cage, not after tasting the sweet nectar of freedom. She needed this place so much, more than she needed anything else in the world.

Mary released the orchid. She shifted to look straight up into the headmaster's eyes.

"I will always be loyal to you, master," Mary said.

The headmaster's smile broadened. "I know you will."

*

And that was just the beginning. As Mary sat on the rock, stirring the waters of the river with her finger, she found herself remembering that gray-haired soldier. She thought often of him. Sometimes, in her weakest moments, she wondered if he had been telling the truth, after all. She wondered if her life really was a lie.

The voice came from inside her head. "Mary, report to launch bay at once."

"Yes, master," Mary said, immediately.

She rose to her feet, shaking the droplets of water off her finger. Mary walked quickly down the path to the exit, but not too quickly. She was afraid that she might not return here for quite some time, and she wanted to make this moment last.

To stretch it out, she asked, "What is my mission, master?"

"Interrogation," the Kromagg voice in her mind said. "We have uncovered the existence of four homo sapiens. They disabled one of our Manta cruisers, and escaped into another dimension. One of them stole a tracking device, and we are hunting them down."

"Rebels," Mary murmured as she walked out of the garden.

"No. We believe they are different. They showed no signs that they were aware of the Kromagg Dynasty. From our monitoring of their conversations through the tracker, we believe they developed interdimensional travel on their own. They call themselves Sliders."

The End