(Excerpt from WHERE THE GRASS DON'T GROW AND VULTURES SING)

 

The thin chromium needle pushed slowly into my skull, and I tried to scream. But no one heard me--not the techies and not the damned Zunakai. They make sure our cortical speech centers are shut down so our voices can't hurt their sensitive ears.                                                                   

The pain intensified as steel met scar tissue and newly formed blood vessels. My chief techie Joe-Boy took pity and loaded in twenty milligrams of morphine to shut down the nerves in my scalp. When he came around in front of me, I read his thin lips through slits in my head plate.

"Drown this bitch in her own juices!" he said, jacking in the final hookups. I knew if I won, he'd beg me to fuck him.

Hell, it had been months since I'd been with a guy. Maybe I would.

* * *

The crowd of Zunakai hummed as the tall, dark-skinned woman was brought into the basketball-sized arena in their mile-wide ships floating above the water-rich planet the inhabitants called Earth. They had felt her power before in previous games, had touched her carnal brutality, and longed for more. When the needle of oneness was inserted into her foramen magnum, they felt her liquid rush of consciousness, agony, and fear.

In a perfectly coordinated movement, the Zunakai smiled.

* * *

Waiting for the other gamer makes me crazy. I have time to look around; I only see the Zunakai. With bright green scales covering them from head to toe, four twig-sized arms,  and a double set of lips like overfilled water balloons--along with a convoluted web of translucent cables, ports, and plugs covering their bodies -- they look like the most silly, stupid things in the universe.

But they weren't stupid; most people considered the Zunakai our saviors. Earth-side for only ten years, we treated them like they had been around forever. The Zunakai stabilized global warming, gave us miracle cures for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's, and promised technology for interstellar travel. They became our new gods, and all they wanted for their benevolence was to be entertained.