Page 24 of His to Mate

“There were a couple of planets we considered. Earth was the most like ours, though, we just needed to thaw it out.”

“And repopulate it.” She’d meant it as a joke, but in the back of her mind, she cringed. Why did she have to bring that up?

“That too. We’ll try it this way, and if it doesn’t work, well, we’ll just gestate a few thousand people in the same lab where we’re bringing animals back to life.”

“That sounds like a cold way to go about it. They’d have no parents. What would it be like for them? How would you do it?” She waited for an answer, but he shook his head.

“It would have to be cloning, so they’d have had parents, but it would have been a long time ago. We’d find DNA where we could and reproduce it in the lab.”

“That’s how you’re reproducing the animals?” She thought about her lovely cow, and wondered if she’d lived before.

“Yes, but we have to be careful. We don’t want to bring some of your people back, do we?” He laughed, but she could see he was serious.

“No, you’re right. Some people are better left dead.”

“Exactly. So, we’d rather reproduce humans the natural way. To give them all a chance at having a good life.”

“Couldn’t your lab tweak the genes though? Make sure that things like mental illness and physical disabilities didn’t exist?”

“We could, yes. But what would that get us? A world that looks exactly the same, across the board. We don’t look at those things as bad, Ann. We do work to make sure the people with these disadvantages are cared for, however. We try to help them lead positive lives, too.”

“I like that.” She propped her own head on her hands and looked at him. “What do you want to explore next?”

“Your body, my sweet, but we need to check that hotel and the other building before I can explore you.”

“Hm. I think you should do me then the other.” She made sure there was a twinkle in her eye as she looked at him. He leaned closer to her, as if he wanted to crawl over the table and kiss her. But he leaned back, took a deep breath, and shook his head.

“No, duty calls. Your people need things we can’t give them, so we must hunt them down.”

“Fine, but I won’t be happy about it. What are we looking for specifically?”

“You can be as grumpy as you like, Ann.” He stood up with a wink and smiled. “We’re looking for bedding, beds, room dividers, things like that. I thought a hotel would be the best place to look.”

“You’re right. Won’t we need another transporter?” she asked and followed behind him. When she caught up to him, she placed her hand in his. She smiled when his fingers closed around hers and he didn’t let go.

“One will come tomorrow if we find what we need.” He pulled her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “Let’s see what we find first.”

They found a lot of dust on the first floor, but beneath that, they found the laundry with bedding nestled in plastic tubs. Everything they could want for a bed was there, and upstairs there were quite a few hundred single and double beds to take. Room dividers weren’t really an option, but they did find those in the next building. They were dividers for workstations but they would do the job.

“Why do you need all of this?” Ann asked as they finally left the two buildings and boarded the transporter.

“We have a load of people coming in from Illinois. We’re going to put them in the hotels in our sector, but a lot of them will have to stay in other shelters. We don’t have enough houses or apartments cleared for all of them yet.”

“Ah, I see.” She nodded as he guided the transporter off the ground. “That sounds like a huge amount of people.”

“They were all in a bunker up there, some kind of government facility. I expect a few might be trouble, but we’ll soon have them settled in. I hope. Otherwise, life won’t be pleasant for them.”

“What do you mean?” She was puzzled and looked at him. “I thought you weren’t going to have a prison here?”

“That was the idea, but I should have known better. Some of your people are so… selfish, Ann. I’ve never encountered it before, not until I came here. It’s staggering, really.”

“It can be, especially if you haven’t seen it before.” Ann’s thoughts were on Rex, but she didn’t say it. “It’s hard to get used to, and honestly, I don’t think you ever do.”

“No, and it seems we can’t show them a better way, so we’re putting the ones that break too many rules, or go too far in a place down toward Mexico. They’re kept alone out there, where they can’t hurt anyone here.”

“Unless they join together,” she pointed out, not sure it was a good idea at all. “That’s when you get problems, when like-minded people join up and hatch up plots.” She trod carefully and chose her words as best she could. She didn’t want him to even think about people like Rex.

It would kill Amanda and Stephan if Rex were discovered, and it might hurt her parents, too. And her, in the long-run. She already had enough people that hated her, she didn’t need to add to it. For now, Rex hadn’t hurt anyone, he’d just been himself and hot air. Maybe he’d calm down once wolves started to have more freedom.