Alien Thrill Seeker (Adrenaline Rush Book 2) Read online

  Alien Thrill Seeker

  Book Two of Adrenaline Rush

  Lawrence M. Schoen

  Brian Thorne

  Copyright © 2020 by Lawrence M. Schoen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Ryan Schwarz.

  Book design by Lawrence M. Schoen.

  Lawrence M. Schoen's Author photo by Nathan Lilly.

  Brian Thorne's Author photo by Shenoa Herlinger.

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-951391-12-6

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-951391-13-3

  Vers. 200208

  This volume is dedicated to our dogs,

  past and present, who have made our lives fuller by their simple presence and companionship.

  Life is just better with dogs.

  And no, Potato is not even close to being a dog,

  but please don't tell Coop.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  To Be Continued

  Acknowledgments

  About Brian Thorne

  About Lawrence M. Schoen

  Also by Lawrence M. Schoen

  Chapter 1

  Ben Cooper’s head pounded. His brain housing unit throbbed, and his mouth tasted like ass. He knew the signs all too well, having learned them over the course of more than forty years of overindulgence and resulting hangovers. Later, he'd hydrate and that would help, but for now the trick was to avoid actually waking up. He kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut and rolled to his right with every intention of returning to sleep.

  That’s when he bumped into the body.

  Coop’s eyes shot open, all thought of his aching head or the healing power of sleep having vanished. Light flooded his retinas. He groaned in discomfort and blinked rapidly. When his eyes adjusted, he tried to make sense of what he saw, hoping it might trigger his memory of how he'd gotten there.

  The body belonged to a young woman, and while it wasn’t a new experience for the aged actor to wake up hungover and in bed with a lovely companion, it was the first time he could recall doing so fully clothed.

  Seconds ticked by as Coop stared at the twenty-something woman’s face. He frowned. Twenty-something might be generous. Too young. Despite being in his sixties, Coop's big screen charisma had never waned and he routinely bedded women decades his junior, but this was a bit extreme. This woman hadn't even been alive back when his career had peaked. The presence of his clothing suggested he hadn't done anything inappropriate and his expression transitioned from frown to smile. He'd never had a problem waking up with ladies he had little personal familiarity with. Confirmation that they still had trouble resisting his charms stroked his ego. Still, he was pretty sure it was the first time he’d woken up next to a woman in a coma. A dark-haired, very pretty woman in a coma.

  That should mean something.

  And then his brain kicked in and provided the missing piece.

  Coma. Shit! It's Tycho!

  Memories flooded Coop’s mind. The Box aliens — stupid, arrogant, smarmy robot-inhabiting aliens — and their bullshit medical experiments. And his escape from their demented custody with Tycho — the comatose young woman in bed with him — and Dr. Jessica Acorns, the pretty young researcher who had helped him escape the Box ranch and an almost certain death. Jessica liked Coop, even if she didn’t know it yet. In fact, the last thing he remembered was driving… er, crashing, one of the Box’s vehicles over the wall of their compound. After that, he had nada.

  Coop pushed himself up on the bed and looked around.

  The room was… less than stellar. Back during his glory days he'd enjoyed some pretty posh accommodations, and while those times were well behind him, they provided a benchmark. This room though… it wasn't up to even the reduced standards he held for himself. Nor even up to the standards he tolerated when his agent and manager reminded him that he was broke. This room just plain sucked.

  It wasn't just small, it was oppressively small. Cramped even. Purple wallpaper decorated with a motif of grey metallic fleur-de-lis covered the walls giving the room a 19th century feel that was at odds with the modern, day-glow ceiling. Not that there was much worth illuminating. A large bed took up most of the space. The mattress felt like little more than a metal shelf with a worn out layer of packing peanuts, wrapped up in dingy sheets that smelled like old sex and potpourri. Eww. Taking in the rest of the room revealed a dim mirror mounted on a side wall, a small door that led to what Coop presumed would be an equally disappointing bathroom, a dinky bedside table that projected the time onto its adjacent purple wall, and a solitary chair currently occupied by an annoyed looking Dr. Jessica Acorns.

  Annoyed. But still pretty.

  Coop immediately adjusted his posture, projecting a more confident mien to the young woman. It was a reflex; he couldn’t help it. He was Ben “Coop” Cooper, action star. People expected and received a certain level of casual confidence from him regardless of what was going on around him. Forty years in the business had taken their toll, and sometimes — like now — his learned habits of projecting the right image replaced his ability to act like a normal human being. He could play one with ease, he just couldn’t always remember to be one.

  “About time you woke up,” Jessica grumbled.

  Coop turned his head to the right. Jess’s tone told him he was in trouble, but since he didn’t know why, he instinctively opted to give her his best side. His head-shot side. The side with the tiny scar from a fall off a playground jungle gym when he was a toddler. He always said it was from a bar fight, but it wasn’t. Having the correct back story was important, and so were all the tiny details that fed it. That bit of a scar provided a little something extra that gave women pause and ultimately made them swoon. Not that the right side of his face was anything to scoff at, mind you.

  He needed a minute to think. And he needed information.

  “Where are we?” he finally asked.

  “The Four Seasons, of course. Did you sleep well? Would you like room service? A pot of tea perhaps? What do you mean, ‘where are we’? This hell-hole was your idea.”

  Coop shook his head. That did not make sense. He'd never choose a room like this. Better to sleep in a park. Ben Cooper did not stay in dingy places on purpose.

  “Why does it look like a cheap, French whorehouse?”

  Jess raised an eyebrow at him with incredulity. “Because it is a whorehouse, Mr. Cooper. And yes, surely a cheap one — not that I have any bas
is for comparison myself. Why do you keep asking stupid questions? You were the one who robbed the bank machine. You were the one who came up with the idea to hide out in a brothel. More, you were insistent about it. This was all you, Mr. Cooper. So please stop asking me to explain it.”

  Coop blinked again. I did what?

  “Jess, I have no clue what you’re talking about. The last thing I remember is crashing over the wall back at the ranch…”

  The back of Coop's head, near the base of his skull, began to itch.

  «A bordello is a classic hiding place, Ben. It's been used by all the greats in some of the most important movies ever made. Heck, you can’t make a western without a good brothel. It would be a sin.»

  Despite years of habit and a reputation for one of the best poker faces on any movie set, the color drained from Coop's expression. The voice! Coop remembered the voice in his head. It had appeared seconds before he’d lost control of his body and caused their escape vehicle to pop up on two wheels and scale the Box compound's wall in near-suicidal fashion.

  «Ben, are you listening?»

  Yes. But why? Who are you?

  «No time for all that, buddy. Just pay attention. The Box are going to be after us. We’re still in serious trouble.»

  Super.

  «Fortunately for you, and the lovely and talented Dr. Acorns over there, I knew that. Just like I knew a brothel would be the ideal place to hide out for a guy with two attractive young women. Especially when one of them is comatose. And did I mention Dr. Acorns? Man, brains are so attractive.»

  Do I want to know why you have experience with these things?

  «Don’t worry about it, Ben. Time is of the essence.»

  Who are you and why are you in my head?

  «Am I so easily forgotten? You really don’t pay attention. I’m Dyrk.»

  Coop suddenly remembered. The voice had told him his name before he’d blacked out.

  “Mr. Cooper? Hello? Are you with me?”

  Coop shook his head and looked at Jess. She had a concerned look on her face.

  “Sorry, Jess. What?”

  “You looked like you went somewhere else. Your eyes were glazed over. Are you feeling okay?”

  He was most certainly not feeling okay. Coop was on a moon in Saturn’s orbit, running from psychotic aliens, infected with an immortal virus, and now he was either possessed or losing his damn mind.

  “No. No, Jess. I’m not okay.” He took a deep breath and steadied himself. If anyone could help him right now, it was her. He just wasn’t very good at admitting he needed help. Especially not to young women. “I really don’t remember anything after we got out of the compound. And now there’s a voice in my head. Don't give me that look, I'm telling you what's happening to me. The voice, he calls himself Dyrk. And it isn’t the first time I’ve heard him. He spoke to me right before I drove us over the wall at the Box compound. Or maybe he drove us over. I'm pretty sure I lost control of my body right around then. I must have blacked out after that and just woke up here.”

  Jess shook her head. “No, you didn’t. You’ve been conscious the whole time. First you drove us into the city at warp speed in a damaged transport. Then you hacked that bank machine and grabbed all the credits before dragging us halfway around the spaceport where you abandoned our vehicle at a public entrance, pausing only long enough to strap Tycho to her gurney so you could push her pell mell though back street and alleys until you reached some seedy area behind a bunch of dive bars where you started asking around for a whorehouse. And when we got here you handed over most of the stolen money to the alien madam running this nightmare establishment.”

  “You think I did that? Seriously? That doesn't even sound like me.”

  Jess shook her head. “You tossed Tycho over your shoulder, climbed the stairs to the Ambassadorial Room, popped her down on the bed and immediately collapsed alongside her.” She finished with a mocking sweep of her arms.

  “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “Really? Because it certainly seemed like you’d done this before. I’m guessing theft and whorehouses aren’t new territory for you.”

  “First off, I’ve never been to a whorehouse.”

  Jess looked at him skeptically.

  “I’m a star, Jess. Stars don’t need to go to prostitutes. If we want for company, there's an endless line of young lovelies hoping to spend time with us. Why are we talking about this? At any rate… I’ve never been anywhere like this and secondly, I sure as hell don’t know a damn thing about hacking a bank machine. Nothing you said makes any sense. It just isn’t possible. Now, if you’d said I’d charmed someone into helping us, sure. That I could believe.”

  Jess rested her face in the palms of her hands and groaned.

  That isn’t a helpful response.

  “Jess, I swear. I don’t remember anything after the stunt-driving back at the ranch.”

  «That’s because I handled all of that,» Dyrk chimed in. «And now that we’re safe for the moment, we need to discuss our plans.»

  “Uh, Jess. Dyrk says he did the driving and now we need to discuss our plans.”

  The young doctor lifted her head just enough for her pretty eyes to meet his. “Oh, he does? Sure, why not.”

  Coop wasn’t wholly convinced that Jess believed him. Oh, well.

  «All right, Ben. Here’s the deal. The next commercial vessel doesn’t leave for Earth for a week. And believe me, the tickets will not be cheap. We’re going to need three of them. Plus fake ID’s for everyone. That means we need to lay low and hide out from the Box, while at the same time procuring what we need to get off this rock. All of this is going to require more cash and we can’t risk the money machine thing again, not that it would have the kind of funds we need anyway. You with me so far?»

  Sure. That makes sense.

  «Good. And one more thing. We have to go back to the ranch and rescue Potato.»

  Coop choked out loud. You’ve lost your damn mind, Dyrk. Is it your mind? Have you lost my mind? This is too confusing.

  «No time for all that, Ben. Now tell Jessica what I just told you.»

  Coop considered arguing but decided that would just be crazy. Or, crazier at any rate. So, he dutifully relayed Dyrk’s plans to Jessica who responded by burying her face back in her own hands and muttering. “This is not happening. You have got to be kidding me.”

  “I wish I was, Jess. But he seems pretty determined.”

  “Mr. Cooper, did you forget what the Box want to do with you? You know, the vivisection? Cutting you open while you’re alive to see how the virus works. Do you remember that?”

  A chill of fear raced down Coop’s spine. He had forgotten that part. Oh, hell no.

  The base of his skull began to itch and throb. In the next instant Dyrk’s presence had somehow jumped to the front of his consciousness, taking control of his body and speaking to Jessica using Coop’s mouth.

  «Let me spell it out for you, Doctor. Scatola is many things, but he isn’t a fool. There’s a remote possibility that he hasn’t figured out that your efforts with the virus have worked, maybe not to what extent, but unless you scrubbed the facility’s surveillance footage then we have to assume he knows by now.»

  Jess lifted her head up. “Surveillance footage?”

  «The Box document everything. You know this.»

  “Well, yes, but—

  «Do you have any reason to doubt that they have a gazillion cameras, all of them hooked up to timers or motion sensors, running in every room and corridor? Do you think that a race of über wealthy, anal-retentive, AI-beings with a passion for knowledge-capture and a hardwired need to treat everything like an algorithm would have left anything to chance when it comes to documentation?»

  “I don’t… wait, how do you even know about such things, Mr. Cooper?”

  Dyrk sighed. «Coop knows about being on camera. I know about security, which is the matter at hand. Now, back on track. Once the Box are convinced that you
r research has borne fruit they will try again. They might well screw it up, but as long as they have Potato, they will continue to make systematic attempts until either they succeed or Potato dies. And as you know, Potato can't die. And this means he will suffer an eternity of torture alongside whatever new guinea pigs the Box procure.»

  Jessica nodded slowly, following the logic if not totally convinced about the whole Dyrk thing. “Why are you telling me this?”

  «Because it informs our next course of action. We must rescue Potato from the Box.»

  “Rescue him? Why?”

  Inside his own head, Coop shouted. Yeah, why? Let’s just get the hell out of Dodge!

  «I would think your Hippocratic Oath would make that clear, Dr. Acorns. The damage that the Box will do to other humans — healthy individuals, not just the terminal patients you worked with — in pursuit of recreating an effective version of the virus, that’s ultimately all on your head. But even if that doesn’t motivate you, there’s a much more basic reason why we need to save Potato.»

  “What’s that?”

  «He’s my family. Kin. He’s blood.»

  “Kin? You're some kind of self-aware hallucination living in an old man's head. How is a non-sapient, furry, alien animal related to you?”

  Old man? That was unnecessary.

  «That should be obvious to you, Doctor, given that you helped bring me into being. I’m not a hallucination, I'm very real. I'm a persona created by a portion of the virus that you shaped by exposing Potato to thousands of hours of videos and then passed on to Ben Cooper. That transfer gave me access to a functional mind and allowed me to achieve consciousness.»