Argurma Monster (The Argurma Chronicles #2)

Chapter 23

Talech prowled restlessly, his vibrissae snapping around him with angry hisses as his mandibles clicked in an angry chitter. It had been two days that they were locked inside the room and whatever hope he had that they would be reunited with their mate had gradually fractured and crumbled. He needed to find a way to get out of there. They needed to find Beverly. He would tear the entire spaceport apart if he had to.

Snarling, he whirled around and charged the door for he calculated was the twelfth time in the last hour. He knew that was insanity, and he was aware of Zoreth’s eyes following him, but he could not hold back his rage. What stability he found in attaching to both Beverly and Zoreth, it had been quickly shattered with his mate’s absence. He turned toward the door of their cell and stalked over to it in a rage. Roaring, he slammed his fists on the walls sending an echoing vibrational through the room that hurt his ears. A hand curled around one of his horns and his head was dragged to the left to meet Zoreth’s concerned eyes.

“Calm, Talech,” the male ordered. “I have been gradually working my way into the system over the last thirty-three hours to hack into the system here but your bellowing is distracting me.”

“Beverly... anastha... she is—”

“I process her absence,” Zoreth soothed. “I feel the same rage, but this situation requires our focus. We are incapable of action while confined and they will not release us.”

“I will break the door,” Talech growled. “I have broken many doors.”

Zoreth chuffed softly and shook his head, his vibrissae twining with Talech’s comfortingly. “A spaceport does not possess such weakness. Force will not work. Even its systems are created with encryption difficult to access. Give me a rotation, Talech.”

“A rotation?” Talech spat. “They have stolen our mate. They will seek to destroy us.”

“It is difficult to destroy on Argurma. More to destroy two,” Zoreth reminded him with infuriating calm. “And our anastha possesses intellect and resourcefulness. They will not succeed easily with her.”

Humor rose reluctantly through the haze of Talech’s malfunctioning systems, and he chuffed in agreement despite himself. “Beverly will remove the civix of any male who gets too close without her permission granted.”

Zoreth nodded, his glowing gaze growing warm. “Beverly is fierce.”

Talech grunted and heaved a heavy sigh. Returning to the white bench that ran along the back wall of the cell, he sat down on it. The entire containment cell was made of the same white material so that the walls appeared to reflect every bit of light back at them in a way he found disconcerting. He greatly disliked it.

His hands curled into fists on his thighs, anxiety twisting through him. The room had no smell, no taste. Just sterile, terrible, white walls. His mandibles clicked in a nervous chitter that quieted the moment Zoreth sat next time him on the bench and pressed into his side.

“I process that you are accustomed to embracing Beverly, but you may clutch me if it will ease you.”

Talech expelled a sharp breath as he turned gratefully to the male. His brother, his co-mate... no, his mate. Although Beverly was the missing piece between them, he recognized his attachment and affection. His love for Zoreth was different but he was definitely Talech’s. He folded his arms and the long, black spinal limbs around the male, holding him close as their vibrissae twined together. He sank into the male’s comforting warmth. The emptiness growing within him quieted. It still wanted Beverly, but it recognized Zoreth and accepted him.

“This does not disrupt your systems?” he queried.

The male chuffed. “No. It is acceptable.”

“Acceptable?”

“Good. It is good, Talech,” Zoreth assured him. He brushed a hand along a spinal limb and Talech wished he had sensation there to feel the caress. He had minimal neurological input from the limb that merely allowed him to adjust his hold. He could not feel an embrace. “Strange but good.”

Talech relaxed against his back, the male’s heartbeats soothing him. Although Zoreth’s system was fighting that security of the spaceport, his physical presence made all the difference. Gradually, Talech’s hearts slowed to match his and his breaths slowed to a steady reasoning, clearing the worst of his confusion as time continued on without them. He still worried about Beverly, wondering where she was at or if a male was attempting to approach her, but he did not let that worry do more than race over the surface of his mind before disappearing. Zoreth was stabilizing him. He filled the emptiness of the room, making it more bearable. The silence was filled with his breath—and then a scream.

The scream that penetrated their cell was muffled by the thick walls, but in the silence, it cut with the urgency of a siren as scream after scream layered over it in a symphony of chaos. Talech and Zoreth rose warily to their feet and made their way toward the port window on their door. Talech froze as a bloody hand slapped across their window before falling away. As it dropped out of sight, the screams grew louder and Talech was able to distinguish voices shouting amid the panic.

“The infected have breached! Run!”

Kaze males rushed past the door, none giving any thought to the two Argurma locked I nside. Zoreth watched them dispassionately but then his eyes lifted as the comm crackled to life in the room.

“Attention... attention.... There has been a containment breach. All residents head to zone A. I repeat, head to Zone A.”

The comm went off and Zoreth glanced over at Talech. “They plan to leave us here.”

Talech whirled to the door, his spinal limb spread wide. He did not care if it tore his own implants off, he would wrench the door off. He would save his mate. Roaring, he charged to the door but stumbled to a stop in surprise when it suddenly slid open the lithe figure of a Kaze female stepped inside. Her shocked gaze fell on Talech and then moved over Zoreth before flooding with relief.

“Thank Ziweela, I have been checking every containment room in this corridor,” the female wheezed, and she motioned rapidly for them to proceed from the room. “Come, we must Beverly out of here. Ragal has already proceeded with her to the mating pool by force but with the lockdown, he is certain to take her to Zone A,” she explained as she hurried down the hall ahead of them, leaving them to follow after her, their footsteps pounding with their stride.

“Probability of retrieving her from Zone A?” Zoreth queried as they rounded a bend at full speed, their feet skidding on the polished floor.

The female shook her head, her breath heaving in and out of her in heavy pants as she rushed down the hall at an impressive speed. “None. You need to retrieve her before he gets to the lockdown zone. It is not connected to the main system of the spaceport as that zone is reserved for cases of dire emergency, so you will not be able to uplink and access it.”

Talech scrutinized her curiously. “You knew that was what Zoreth was attempting?”

Her head jerked in a nod. “I have been covering his hacking attempts and undoing some of the securities from my end. I could not let Ragal succeed. We were almost through, but there was an infection was not caught by our scanners.”

She released an explosive puff of air in a sharp sigh of frustration. “I warned them not to experiment on the parasites, that nothing good would come of it. They were attempting to make the parasite compatible to Kaze for a true symbiotic relationship which they presumed would leave the mind of the host intact for assisting to eliminating the cause of the infection. And that started with an attempt to increase their intelligence. Worse, they stared to believed that they were like gods and were getting sloppy about their scans.” She shook her head. “They should have known better than anyone that infection can happen without the host even being aware of it until the parasite seizes complete control. And evidence shows that they have intentionally waited.”

“What is the calculated infection rate?” Zoreth followed up with a growl.

“Alarming,” she shot back. “The parasites that attacked the scientists were fully mature adults that were being genetically manipulated. Not only do they have a faster rate of maturation that was an unexpected consequence of one of the experiment sequences, but they breed quickly. They were already releasing juvenile larva from their hosts before anyone realized something was wrong. The scientists had gone to bed with their bunk mates like normal the night before, but the entire residential section was awoken by screams. The new generation adults are estimated to reach sexual maturity within hours of burrowing into a host, and they are releasing a constant stream of juveniles within twenty-four hours. Those three hosts have infected dozens already.”

Talech growled as Zoreth let out a stream of curses.

“How far is the mating pool?” the male demanded. “I will not leave my mate in here for even a zec. This is insanity.”

“This way,” the female panted, pointing down the hall ahead of her. “The pools are directly in the center of the spaceport for the sake of convenient access. This hall just head will take us directly there.”

Talech gnashed his mandibles as he seethed. And at the end of that hall would be bloodshed.