by Marc Landau
The good news was she was still alive. At least some part of her was. A glimmer of hope sparked, as did a worry that saving her might be a bad decision.
It’s still alive, the little voice corrected me.
The bad news, I was freezing my coco-giblets off. But it was worth it if I could repay the favor. It struck me as weird that unlike the first time the alien had energy-succubussed, this time it was just me and Poka being bled out. The ship looked fine but just to be sure, I asked.
“All systems normal. Temperature at optimum levels.”
“What’s the current room temp?”
“Seventy-six degrees.”
Seventy-six? It felt like sub-zero.
“Can you crank the heat up?”
“What increase do you desire?”
“Jussssst. Craaaa…nnnnk. Iiiiiittt. Uuuuuup.” My lips quivered.
The ship made a ship noise, then the lights shifted to amber.
“Heat lamps activated.”
It did nothing. I still felt like I was walking around naked on the Tundra of Holdrin.
“What’s the temp?”
“One hundred thirteen degrees.”
“Can you turn it up?”
“Your skin will burn, and then melt.”
Okay, I didn’t want melted skin. “Skip it. Turn them off. It’s not doing any good.”
The ship accepted my request and shut the heat lamps off.
I wanted to check on Kat. Try to do something to revive her. But it was too cold to move. Whatever the alien was doing, it was getting pretty close to turning me into an ice cube. Poka too. I hugged the dog, and she wagged around trying to generate heat, but we were both freezing to death. This was too much. I wasn’t going to die again. Not this soon after almost blowing myself up.
I decided to try to communicate with the alien. If I keyed in on strong emotions, maybe I would get through. How do I get intensely emotional? And what emotion? I had no idea what it would react to. If I got angry, would it retaliate? If I got sad, would it shrivel up? Ugh. I had to go with my gut, and my gut said you have no clue what’s going to happen, so just do anything. So I picked the easiest emotion to muster at the moment.
Anger. I let the frustration of the last few days come to the surface. The close calls with death. The confusion and fear of being faced with an alien that was a clone of a woman I loved. And of course, I was furious that me and Poka were going to freeze to death.
Enough already! I needed it to stop. I needed all of this to just fraking stop!
“Stop it!”
And just like that, it stopped.
The warmth from the ship immediately washed over me as my body temp creeped back to normal. I touched Poka and felt her fur go from cold to warm in seconds. She couldn’t speak, but the expression on her face looked like relief. A few seconds later, she scurried off to the corner of the pod and peed. I could relate. I could use a good pee right about now, too. Why does freezing make you have to pee?
The mini-cleaner-drone scooted out of a hidden hatch and sprayed sterilizing agent on her mess, then blow-dried it until the spot was cleaner than the rest of the room. Note to self: Tell the drones to clean the entire ship when all this is over. This place is a mess.
Focus.
It had worked! Being a super-emotional wreck had finally paid off. I’d figured out a way to communicate with the thing. Even better, I got through to it and it acted! It turned the heat back on. Thank you alien succubus.
Now that Poka and I weren’t going to freeze to death, it was time to save Kat. I couldn’t save her last time, but I could do something now.
There was no last time. Kat died on that planet, the voice in my head said.
“Just shut up and let me save her!”
I ripped open the medi-kit and used every device and doohickey in the satchel. Nothing worked. I even tried old fashioned CPR. There’s a song they told you to use while you pressed on the person’s chest. I couldn’t remember it, so I used a random song and hoped for the best. I put my hand on her chest. Hopefully there was a heart in there. I started compressions.
Push. Push. Push.
Breathe.
I couldn’t help but notice how soft her lips were.
You just want to kiss the alien.
“Shut up.”
Push. Push. Push.
Breathe.
Wow. Her lips are so warm.
Stop kissing the dead alien! You necro-frak.
This wasn’t working, and I didn’t want to argue with myself anymore. Especially since I thought the little voice might be right. The CPR wasn’t working, anyway. Nothing was working. She was still laying there like Princess Cinderella, and my CPR kisses hadn’t brought her back to life. I guess I wasn’t a prince.
It’s not Cinderella, it’s Snow White. And you’re no prince. If anything, you’re Sleepy. Or maybe Dopey, the voice corrected.
I was out of ideas but had to keep trying. So I did what everyone does when nothing else works. They yell.
“Kat! Wake up!”
She didn’t blink, move, or breathe. But Poka raced to the other end of the dock pod. She’s not a big fan of me yelling. I get it.
“Wake up! Kat, can you hear me? Wake up!”
Still nothing. So I did when everyone does when screaming fails. I shook and slapped her while yelling.
“Wake the hellvian up!”
SLAP.
But she still didn’t wake up.
“Are you in danger?” the bot said, startling me.
I hated when it snuck up on me like that. Damn hoover feet.
“No, why? And aren’t you supposed to be fixing the ship?”
“I heard you yelling and deduced you were in trouble.”
That was kind of sweet. The bot thought I was in trouble and was trying to help me out.
“Thanks for wanting to help me. None needed.”
The bot looked away and made an awkward buzzing sound. Like when you catch a kid in a lie.
“You didn’t come to help me, did you?”
It made more low buzzing sounds and avoided eye contact. It knew it was busted.
“Why did you come, then?”
“I thought you might be deceased and was going to clean the ship of your biohazard.”
Incredible! The bot cared more about a clean ship than me. I couldn’t say I was shocked.
“You came here to eject me from the trash shoot?”
“Beep. Erm….No.”
“Liar. Admit it.”
It buzzed in shame, not wanting to answer, but finally responded. “Correct.”
Crazy bot was more excited to trash-shoot me than fix the life support systems. Maybe I hadn’t cleared out all the scrambled programming after all. Now it was just more sinister in its attempt to kill me. Instead of a frontal attack, it would delay fixing the life support. What did it care? It didn’t need the oxygen.
“Whatever. Sorry you wasted the trip.”
“Apology accepted,” the bot replied, unable to grasp my sarcasm.
“Since you’re here, try to revive Kat, will you?”
“You mean the alien?”
“You know what? I’m sick and tired of everyone arguing with me about whether it’s Kat or an alien. It’s both, okay? Just let me call it-her Kat.”
“Who is everyone you’re arguing with?”
I wasn’t about to tell the walrus about my discussions with the little voice in my head. It didn’t understand that humans argued with themselves. It would just relieve me of my command again and send me to the med-bay for another psych eval.
“I misspoke. Can you just try help to her?”
The bot busted out a bunch of medi-appendages as it slid over to Kat. It looked like a weird Doctor Octopus—and not the one from the ancient comics.
“None of my systems can read the alien. I mean, Kat’s life signs.”
“I know. Just do what you would do to a human if you found them like this.”
The bot moved c
loser, then took hold of Kat and started dragging her.
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to eject the biohazard out of the trash shoot.”
“Stop. Leave her where she is. I’m trying to fix her.”
“There is no way to analyze….”
“Just try something. Pretend it’s a person in a coma or something.”
“I cannot pretend,” it said with a definite sarcasm dripping on the words.
Good for you for working on the sarcasm. But again, bad timing.
“Then don’t. She’s in a coma, okay? Fix it.”
“I have no data to support your theory.”
“I swear to the universe, I’m going to shut you down if you don’t do what I say.”
The bot buzzed and hummed. It was thinking it over. Was it going to do as I asked, or was it ready to fight me again? I didn’t care. I was ready to pounce on that thing’s neck appendage and shut it down. And this time, I wouldn’t start it up again. Hellvian be damned, I’d fix the life support myself.
It stopped beeping and buzzing. It had made its choice. Was it going to help, or were we going to fight? I readied myself to pounce on its neck just in case.
The walrus slid over to Kat’s head and started scanning and injecting and putting medical looking stuff on her body. A few moments later, medi-drones flew in and joined the party. Soon it looked like an emergency room with a full staff of medi-services professionals doing anything they could to revive the patient.
I’d never seen such a thing in real life. Only on the vid screens. In the shows me and Mom watched—Plutarc M.D., Plutarc Fire, and Plutarc P.D. —they always revived the patient. Except when they didn’t. If they died it was due to human error, as the bot would say. Some doctor was on drugs and wouldn’t admit it and then finally went to rehab after killing a patient. Or it’s a love triangle. Doctor hunk gets nurse sexy pregnant and he kills a patient because his wife just called! Human drama kills. Luckily, the bot had none of those issues.
I watched helplessly and waited for the report from the doctor bot. I knew from the vids I was gong to hear one of two things.
“I’m sorry, but the damage was just too great.”
Or…
“We got a heartbeat! Get the patient to the O.R., stat!”
I waited and waited but neither of those sentences came from the bot’s mouth hole.
It felt like an hour had passed, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Then the bot and the drones stopped. Just like on the medi-shows when the team gives up and accepts that the patient didn’t make it. I waited for the bot to call the time of death, just like on the shows.
“Beep. Nurse-bot. Time of death of unknown alien that looks like this shlub’s ex-girlfriend is eight p.m.”
But the bot said nothing.
“Is she…?”
“That is not a full sentence,” the walrus replied.
“It means is she…you know.”
“I do not know.”
“…Dead. Gal Fraggit. Is she dead?”
“I have no way to determine whether the being is dead, or if it’s a her.”
“Thanks for nothing.”
“You are welcome.” The bot sent the helper-drones back to their docking stations within the walls. “Should I eject her out of the trash shoot now?”
“Your bedside manner is horrible. We gotta get you an empathy program.”
“Why?”
“So you at least don’t sound like a robotic serial killer all the time.”
“Is that a ‘no’ on the trash shoot?”
“Yes. That’s a ‘no.’ Take her to one of the sleep quarters and put her into a bed.”
“That makes no sense.”
“What else is new?”
The bot paused in data driven thought. “Social etiquette would dictate we have a funeral service. Keeping a deceased human on a bed would be considered creepy.”
“Then I’m creepy. Just do it.”
“Confirmed.” It gently picked up Kat and hoover-slid her to the sleeping quarters.
“Wait,” I yelled, and it complied. “Take her to the garden. She likes it there.”
The bot lifted one of its eyebrow slits and gave me a look like I was insane, but it didn’t argue the point. A welcome change. It just confirmed my command and slid away.
No way I was going to trash-shoot her until I was sure she was dead. Which I had no confirmation of. In fact, if anything, I felt she was alive. She’d sucked the heat from me and Poka. Dead aliens don’t do that!
Whatever was going on, it wasn’t enough to wake her up. She needed something more. I just had to figure out what it was.
“When you’re done, get back to fixing the ship!”
The bot grumble-beeped its irritation from down the hall.
Chapter Eighteen
I needed a break. Especially since I’d be dead in a few hours if the bot didn’t fix the life support system. It was time for some chow and a nap. It might sound stupid to take a nap and waste precious time when there were only a few hours left to live, but naps did me good. They cleared my brain. Gave me new ideas. A shot of protein and a quick power-nap was the best idea I had to get a new idea. Hopefully I wouldn’t oversleep and wake up dead.
I stuffed my face with the best-tasting food I could find. This might be my last meal, after all. There wasn’t much on the ship that tasted great. The military wasn’t exactly concerned about their people enjoying food. It was more about nutrition. Even so, I was able to find some unregulated peanut butter and Nutella that I’d snuck onboard for an emergency. Just not this kind of emergency. I was expecting an emergency to be not receiving a care package from Mom on time.
I gulped a few spoonfuls, savoring the gooey choco-sugar-peanut goodness. Even with all the destruction around me, the peanut Nutella concoction took me away from it all for a few minutes.
I called out to Poka. Yes, all dogs love peanut butter. If she was gonna kick the bucket with me, she should get some treats too. No chocolate, of course. That’s poisonous. I didn’t want to poison the dog before she died of asphyxiation a few hours from now.
At least dying from lack of oxygen is supposed to be a good way to go. Supposedly you gently drift off to sleep. While we’re talking about good ways to die, I heard freezing to death is also good. You get really hot, have cool hallucinations, and then just float away. That hadn’t been my experience when the alien was sucking all the heat from my body. It was just insanely cold.
That was it. That’s about all of the “good ways” to die I could think of. Oh, wait. Also, I’d heard an aneurism was good. That’s when a blood clot hits your brain and you just go in like one second. They say it’s painless but I wasn’t so sure.
That’s my biggest goal in life. To die painlessly. But first, I want to live to whatever the highest number years is that humans can live. So far it’s about two-fifty. But if it was five hundred that would be better. Hellvian, I’d love to be a vampire so I could be immortal.
I never want to die. Life might be boring, but I’ll take boring over dead any day of the week Iif we still had days of the week). Living is awesome even when it sucks.
Speaking of sucking, if I was a vampire I’d figure something out about the eating blood to survive thing. No way was I gonna suck the blood out of people. Ideally, I’d like to be a vegan. I’d just have to figure out how to get my Dracula hands on some vegan soy blood.
I got a big spoonful of peanut butter and let Poka stare at it. Her eyeballs almost popped out of her head. Her nose sniffed at a hundred snorts a second. She was desperate for some of that peanut butter goodness.
I had to control her impulses. She had no idea how to savor the treat. The word savor wasn’t in her doggie dictionary. The words gulp, snarf, and suck it down in one bite, were. If I put the spoon on the floor, she’d snarf down the peanut butter along with the spoon.
I’d learned that from experience. Luckily, she hadn’t swallowed the
entire spoon, but it almost slid down her throat before I jammed my fingers in there and pulled it out. If it had gotten into her belly, I’d have had to take her to the vet-bot for some nano-surgery. And who can afford that? Those creds aren’t covered so I would’ve had to borrow from mom, and that wasn’t worth the hassle. It would’ve been easier to wait for Poka to poop the spoon out.
Imagine the sonar-image of a spoon lodged in her stomach, or stuck in her butt on the way out. There’s so many things dogs swallow. The number of disgusting things she’d chewed, gulped, and destroyed over the years. Shoes. Pillows. A can of space ship motor oil. It had to be sheer dumb luck that nothing had gotten stuck in there that required surgical-nano removal.
Which, by the way, is pretty gross. Little mech-bugs that go in through your nose and pull the thing out through your butt. A tiny army of robo-ants dragging a spoon out of your butt.
The invention of the mini-bot-removal method became very popular. It wasn’t just used on animals. It probably made most of its money with all the people who tended to get stuff stuck in their butts. Especially when they released the at-home nano-butt-object-removal kits. I think the founder became a quad-trillionaire. The ads were funny.
“Fell down on a toy solider and got it stuck up your butt? Slipped and fell on a light bulb?A banana?”
Because that’s how you get things stuck in your butt. You fall on them.
Back to the peanut butter and Poka’s love affair. Her drool was now dripping onto the floor. A couple more drops and the cleaner-drones would be scurrying out to wipe it up. I moved the spoon to her face and let her try to grab the glob in one bite, but made sure to keep it far enough away that she had to lick it.
Of course, everyone puts peanut butter on the roof of their dog’s mouth. That’s a requirement if you have a dog and peanut butter. There are few things in life more rewarding than watching a dog trying to lick peanut butter from the inside of its mouth.
I wiped the remaining peanut butter on her lips and let her go to town. I needed the smile. “Thanks, Pokes.”
She was loving it. Good dog. She deserved it. I wish I had more to give her. She was going insane for the stuff. I spooned out some more Nutella for myself, and that’s when an idea popped into my mind.
