Contagion (Gennekt, #2)

by Amanda Milo

“Did you disinfect your hands?” I ask him, still horrified because a few moments before, I saw him walk to the wall, extrude himself without wearing gloves, and urinate on it! And they wonder why I started to struggle!

...The mist is exploded human. HOW UNSANITARY!

I stiffen. There are a number of bacterial diseases which are characterized by coughs. “What if I’ve been infected?” I wail, and attempt to fill myself with courage in case I begin to experience convulsive coughing, or any other troubling symptoms of impending doom.

Thus, it’s up to me to touch it and make my escape. That’s all I must do: touch it. Surely there are worse things. Having your carapace sawed into by non-medical novices, for example.

“Are you… are you all right?” I shake my head at myself. “Of course you’re not all right; they didn’t leave you with so much as a sanitation wipe dispenser, you poor thing.”

I’m also trying desperately not to be distracted by the insoluble sticky ball still attached to the bottom of my foot, but there’s a tackiness and a slight hesitation every time I shift my weight. It’s quite horrifying.

These are deplorable conditions, and if the particles of our captors are still suspended in the atmosphere, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Voice wry, my companion dashes my hopes. “Unfortunately, they don’t make mosquito armor, but I appreciate you thinking of me… And yourself.”

The birds here explode from the trees when you scream; it’s very upsetting and quite the negative loop.

Despite her rough treatment of me—including when she barked at me with raging fierceness to stop screaming during my last panic attack. I sniff and notch back my antennae. “I’ve never been so female-handled in all my life,” I inform her primly.

I reel back as far as our grip allows, and tsk. “You poor alien plebeian.”

“I’m ignoring your rational voice from now on. I’ve had enough of it following me and trying to feed me lies.”

With painful dignity, I mutter, “If my translation device is right, and referring to me as princess means you think I’m a self-important, temperamental person with superior tastes and a peculiar difficulty to be pleased; then you’re correct, and I take no offense.”

I adjust the water temperature, and thoroughly scrub my hands— Don’t. Don’t look at me like that for washing myself first. It makes sense to clean her with clean hands, doesn’t it?