by Marc Landau
Except the one who just shot green plasma from its eyes, the voice snickered.
“Shut up.”
Like I was saying, I’m not into aliens, but damn, that Gregon was gorgeous. So it was kind of a birthday party to get over a bad breakup. And Planet Frutnik was the place to do it. It’s like they say, “What happens on Frutnik, gets recorded and used as blackmail.” Damn. That was a great birthday party.
Don’t start reminiscing now! the little voice yelled.
“Right. Sorry.”
The bot beamed like a star. I shielded my eyes to protect them from the sunlike glow. Was it about to go supernova? That would be a new way to die. We’d almost been eaten, blown up, absorbed, and shattered into molecules. But so far no one had gone supernova.
It shone so brightly, I could feel heat on my face. I should’ve brought sunscreen onboard. Who knew I’d be tanning in the dock pod a trillion miles from home?
“Bot. Can you hear me?”
I think it beeped or buzzed a response, but I couldn’t hear over the loudness of the light storm. Somehow the alien had managed to make light loud.
I peeked through my fingers like I was watching a horror vid and saw the walrus suddenly turn around and hoover-slide right out of the dock pod door. “Hey, where are you going?”
Of course it didn’t reply. Great! Now I had a rogue, glowing supernova robot roaming the ship. What could possibly go wrong?
I thought about following it, but didn’t see the point. I didn’t have control of anything at the moment. Trying to control the alien by making Kat emotional had just gone completely haywire. The bot had turned into a giant, raving light bulb, and Kat was laying on the floor unconscious again.
Smooth move, Ex-Lax, the little voice said.
Stupid voice with its corny comedy. Though I had to give Ex-Lax credit for remaining relevant for the last five hundred years or so. Whoever started that ad campaign was a genius.
Focus!
“I’m trying, but you keep fraking me up!”
“Who are you talking to?” Kat asked with a concerned squint.
“No one. Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”
“Ohhhh…kayyyy,” she said like I was sounding crazy. Which I’m sure I was. But what right did she have to judge? She was possessed by an alien.
Kat slowly got back to her feet, rubbing her head and neck. “I feel like I got hit by a Relvan trash-pod.”
“About before. Sorry. I was…”
She smiled. “I know. I just remembered.”
“Remembered what?”
“How you like to argue with the little voice in your head.”
I nodded.
“I always thought that was cute.”
She knew me too well. It felt both comforting and a bit creepy. Regardless, I was relieved to have her conscious again. I hoped bringing her back into the ship wasn’t a mistake and I wouldn’t regret what might have been the only chance I had to make sure these aliens never found Prime.
I was also terrified that if I said anything emotional, I might set Kat off again. So far, whenever the alien reacted to strong emotions, something major occurred. Teleportation. Sphere wars. Turquoise DJ robots.
I might have figured out how to activate some of the alien’s powers, but still had no idea how to control them. Kat wasn’t much help either. She was still oblivious about being an alien. But cracks were forming. She was beginning to see it now, so that was a step in the right direction. We had to figure out a way to get them under control ASAP because untethered chaotic superpowers were seriously dangerous.
I crossed my fingers that the glowing robot wasn’t doing anything too crazy. And that it wasn’t going to be wiped clean or dissolved by the turquoise beam. As much as we hated one another, I didn’t want anything bad happening to it.
“What happened?” Kat asked.
“You laser-blasted the bot.”
She looked around for the walrus. When she couldn’t see it, she suddenly looked horrified. “Did I…”
“Destroy it?”
She nodded.
“No. You shot a beam of green light, and it turned into a Frutnik dance party, then raced out of the dock pod.”
She smiled. “Oh, remember Liri’s cousin’s sister’s eighty-ninth birthday party? That was fun.”
“The best.”
Stop reminiscing with an alien and figure out what to do next.
“Right. Sorry.”
I called out to the ship’s comm system. “Locate the walrus.”
The ship calculated my input, and then replied, “There is no walrus onboard.”
“I mean the ship’s robot. Where is it?”
The ship checked its systems. “In the engine core.”
“What is it doing?”
“It is now on its way to…”
Before the ship could finish its sentence, the robot slid back into the dock pod, no longer performing a turquoise light show. It looked normal again.
“Where did you go?” I asked.
The bot turned and looked at me, blinking its eye appendages in confusion.
“I did not go anywhere. I have been here since you were almost eaten by the wormlike objects that extended from the alien’s mouth. Are you experiencing psychological issues again?”
“Me? You’re the one who doesn’t remember being shot with a laser, putting on a light show, then racing out of here.”
The bot’s expression changed from confusion to frustration. “I did no such thing. In fact, I…”
Kat cut in. “Worms came out of my mouth?”
The bot stopped arguing with me and turned its attention to Kat. It continued distributing cold hard data, with no awareness of social graces. “Correct. They were wormlike," the bot corrected. “Approximately eleven feet in length. Covered in a mucous substance and colored like flowers.”
“It’s—uh, don’t worry about it,” I replied.
“Don’t worry about eleven foot long, booger-flower worms?”
“It was just a thing that happened. It’s okay now.”
“A thing that happened?” she replied with horror. “Where’d they go?”
“Where did what go?” I innocently replied.
“The eleven foot worms!”
Ugh, I didn’t want to tell her they…
“They retracted back into your mouth after ingesting three weeks of food supply,” the robot answered.
“They’re inside me?” Kat gagged.
“Correct.”
She gagged again. “They ate three weeks worth of food?”
“Correct.”
I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We don’t know what happened, exactly.”
“I can play back the vid feed, if you desire to see it.”
I cut off the bot. “No! We don’t need any of that. Thanks.”
“You are welcome.”
“Kat. Look. The truth is, you’re Kat. But you’re also an alien. And the alien part of you is doing some totally crazy stuff, and we don’t know what or why or how, or anything, really. Only that you’re, I mean it’s really powerful. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”
She nodded but I think it was just shock.
It was driving me crazy that the alien was making it so hard to communicate with it. Why keep the Kat personality in the dark? My best guess was, like us, it was also trying to figure things out. It was probably in there, super-frustrated that it couldn’t just tell us what it wanted to do. We were speaking different languages, and it also was trying to figure out how to get through to us.
I had no way to talk to it when it was a rock. Now it was human and female and trying to navigate a human body and mind. Have you ever tried to navigate the mind of a human? I kind of felt bad for the alien. The only thing that might have been worse is if it had chosen to become my mother. No way I’d ever convince Mom she was an alien.
“I’m an alien? Alien, schmalien! Go wash your face, I made some delicious potato salad.”
I guess being a human female was still better than if it had decided to become a male. Talk about a communication nightmare. The thing wouldn’t talk if you begged it.
“Hey, alien, how was your day?”
“Whatever.”
“Do you want Chinese or Trolkon for dinner?”
“Whatever.”
“Can you stop playing vid games for a second, so we can talk about the aliens trying to destroy Prime?”
“In a second. I’m almost at the next level.”
The bot made a loud noise, and it snapped me out of my head and back into the dock pod. “Oh, yeah. So where were did you go, anyway?”
“I was here,” the bot replied.
“You were not here. Check your damn vid feed, if it helps.”
The bot made its noises and buzzes. “There is no feed.”
“Your memory was wiped?”
“Correct. Or it was never recorded to begin with.”
“Doesn’t matter. Point is, you did it. You left.”
The bot buzzed its aggravation with me. “There is no challenging evidence. And your mental functions have been in question since we encountered the alien.”
“My mental functions? How about you? You tried to kill me and Poke!”
“I have no record of that.”
“Ugh.” There was no winning with the bot. “Kat, can you tell it that it left the dock pod after you blasted it with your laser eyes?”
Kat looked away.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” she replied.
The bot grinned victoriously. “Should we take you to the med-bay for an evaluation?”
“If anyone needs a psych eval, it’s you.”
“There is nothing wrong with my code.”
“Trust me. Something screwy is going on.”
“There are no screws in my…”
“Forget it. Can you just get back to trying to fix the life support? And hurry, please.”
The bot beeped, then confirmed my command. “There is little chance that I can repair it before the ship's oxygen becomes lethal to life forms.”
Again, it seemed pleased to point out the lethality of my situation. Maybe I was just getting paranoid. If I was being honest, the bot was actually behaving more like its normal self since Kat laser-blasted it. Normal for the bot. Except for the missing memory blocks.
I got the sense whatever had made it obsessed with murder was gone. I had no proof; it was just a gut feeling. Yes, I’d had gut feelings about things. And I was often correct. Especially about who was cheating on who on Mom’s vid shows.
“You’re so smart! How did you know? You should write these shows. You’d do a better job than them.”
“They’re written by AI-union writing-bots. I’m not even sure the actors are human.”
“The actors aren't human?”
“Not all of them. They use AI-generated actors a lot now.”
“You’re so good with technology.”
“Knowing the actors are AI has nothing to do with knowing about how to use technology.”
“In your opinion.”
“No, not in my opinion. It’s a fact. I have no idea how to create AI actors.”
“In your opinion.”
“It’s not an opinion. Fact. I have no idea how to write AI acting code.”
“But you’re so smart. You could learn.”
“Sure, Mom.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
My stomach gurgled. I hadn’t had this type of gut feeling before. It felt, for lack of a better word, alien. No pun intended. I couldn't be sure the bot didn’t still have some screws loose, so it was still best to watch my back. Just in case. I also couldn’t be sure one of those snot worms hadn’t slid up my butt when I unclenched.
“Just go fix the ship.”
The bot started to slide out of the dock pod, but the ship’s comm system cut in and stopped it in its tracks.
“All life support systems stable,” it said.
What? How’s that possible?
“Can you repeat that, please?” I asked the ship.
“All life support systems stable.”
“How’d that happen?”
The ship paused momentarily, and then projected a holo-vid of the bot in the engine core. It was doing its high-speed maestro magic with its appendages. Fixing the life support systems. Moving faster than I’d ever seen it move. And I’d seen it move super fast. This was like watching the robot in light sculpture form performing a fireworks show in the engine room. It was literally fixing the ship at light speed.
I’d had my fill of bright colored lights for at least a hundred years.
The bot watched itself moving at light speed, its eyeholes wide as they could open. If I had to name it, I’d say it was stupified. Stunned into silence for the first time ever.
“Told you you’d left the dock pod.”
“…You were correct.”
I wasn’t going to rub it in. “The good news is, you fixed it. And you seem to be back to normal. Except for the memory problems.”
“What is the bad news?” the bot asked.
“No bad news. It’s just a saying.”
“That saying doesn’t make sense. It implies there will be bad news after the good news.”
“Can you just let it go?”
“Confirmed.”
“Thank you. Actually, I’d have to say this is the best we’ve done in a while now. The ship’s life support is fixed. Kat is alive. And you seem to have shed your serial killer personality. All we have to do is give Poka a treat, and it’ll be a great day.”
Poka’s ears perked up at the mention of a treat. “Sorry, Pokes. I didn’t mean now.” Her ears went back down.
The bot beeped a confused beep. “How did I fix it? Why was I glowing turquoise light?”
I pointed at Kat.
“Don’t look at me,” she said.
“Stop fighting it. It was you. I said you needed to help us fix the ship. Then you got pissed, started talking in tongues, blasted the robot with lasers, and it ran out and fixed the ship.”
Kat stood there, dumbfounded. It was finally sinking in. She was getting it. She knew she had to be an alien.
“More good news. I sort of figured out how to communicate with it-you.”
“How?”
“You—I mean it—reacts to intense emotions.”
I saw her expression immediately turn to anger. She thought I was calling her overly emotional again. It wasn’t what I meant, and I didn’t want to set off another episode.
“I mean the alien reacts. Its abilities are triggered by emotions.”
“That’s crazy,” she replied.
“Maybe, but it’s true.”
“It is not statistically crazy,” the bot chimed in. “Emotions do carry energy frequencies.”
“So they’re like radio waves?” she asked.
“No. They are emotions.”
“Bot. She was using a metaphor.”
The bot thought it over. “Correct. Emotions may be acting like radio waves.”
“Since you can talk to it—I mean me. I don’t know what I mean. Can’t you just ask it what it wants? And why me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I doesn’t talk like we talk.”
“Ha. Like we ever talked.”
“Now’s not the time.”
“Sorry. I’m just…”
“I know. It’s frustrating.”
“We need a much bigger word than frustrating.”
The bot starting beeping out a thesaurus. “Baffle. Confront. Discourage. Dishearten. Hinder. Impede.”
“Bot. We don’t need the exact perfect word right now. Thanks.”
“Using precise language is critical for…”
“Not now, please.”
Thankfully, the bot went quiet. I turned back to Kat. “I can’t just talk to it, but I think I can get the alien to use its abilities.”
“Great. Tell it to take us home.”
It sounded simple. And it sort of was. If I could make it respond to emotions again, it could teleport us back to anywhere we wanted. The only problem was we couldn’t go back to Prime until I was sure the alien was safe. And I couldn’t control what it did once it got angry.
Also, Kat still wasn’t quite understanding yet that she and the alien were one being. Why would it want to go to Earth? It was most likely home.
“I can’t tell it to take us back to Prime.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t let you, I mean that alien, get close to our system. At least not until we know what its intentions are. It’s too dangerous. Also I have no control of what the alien decides to do once it gets going. You saw what you—it did to the bot.”
“So, I’m too dangerous.”
I nodded as she took the info in. “You’re super powerful.”
She puzzled it out for a few moments. “Right. Sorry, I keep forgetting I’m not me.”
“I keep forgetting too. You definitely seem like you.”
She squinted in thought. “Do you think it could be me?”
I wanted it to be her. I really, really wanted it to be her. And to be honest, I couldn’t tell if it was my own desire to have Kat back, or if the alien was making me desire it. The alien was so much like Kat it was uncanny. Better than any clone I’d ever met. A part of me couldn’t help but believe my Kat was in there.
“It cannot be the human named Kat,” the bot interjected.
Kat’s hopeful expression fell. “You’re right.”
“How can you be so sure?” I asked the bot. “We’ve seen some impossible things lately.”
“The data supports a less than point zero zero zero three percent probability that there is any human genetic content within the alien. If there were, the bio-scanners would have detected it. There is a significantly greater probability that the alien has managed to access your memories using its advanced technology.”
The bot was probably right. But there was still a point zero zero zero three percent chance it was wrong. All hope wasn’t lost. Only most of it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Reset.
Kat’s alive.
The ship’s life support system is fixed.
And no one’s trying to kill us.
