by Marc Landau
“Weneedtogetyouto….”
“Whoa. Whoa. Slow it down a little,” I said.
The alien paused, then slowly began moving the bot’s mouth hole in super slow motion. “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”
“That’s too slow.”
It stopped and tried again. Finally it adjusted the walrus’s mouth to a normal human speed. “We need you.”
It was clear now. “That’s better,” I said. But it was weird to have an alien puppeteering the bot’s mouth. And body. I also didn’t like it having access to all of the bot’s data. It likely didn’t matter. If it wanted to know what it had stored in its databases, I was sure they could access it all with no problem. The only problem they seemed to have was talking to me.
At least my idea worked. Like someone said in a famous ancient mafia vid, “I ain’t so stupid like they say.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“We need you to permit us to take the human-alien hybrid you call Kat with us.”
“Human-alien hybrid?”
“Correct. Your human has blended.”
“Your peanut butter is in my chocolate,” I muttered.
The bot beeped in confusion. “Is that an affirmative response?”
“No. Sorry. Where are you taking her?”
“Not her. They. As I explained there is a human and an alien within the shell,” the bot-alien replied.
Great, the bot’s propensity to correct me was part of the alien-bot hybrid.
“Sorry. Where do you want to take them?”
“We desire to return them to the planet and perform the ceremony.”
“The ceremony? What’s that?”
The bot beeped and hummed. It must have been trying to figure out how to explain it to a plankton. It probably figured black-and-white answers were best but still didn’t fully understand how confusing it was to talk to an actual person. The bot wasn’t going to be able to help them with that at all. It was horrible at talking to actual people.
“It is a process that will remove the human known to you as Kat.”
That sounded good. I could have Kat, and they could have the alien. Then we’d go on our merry way.
“That sounds good.”
“Correct,” the bot-alien replied.
I took Kat’s hand and gently squeezed. “It’ll be good to have you back.” I noticed that her face didn’t move and she didn’t squeeze my hand. “So what do we do?”
“We take the Kat to the planet and proceed with the extraction ceremony.”
I clapped my hands excitedly. It would be good to get off the ship. Even if it was to go down to a bizarre, unexplored planet with deadly all-powerful aliens. I was going stir crazy in here. Maybe once Kat was extracted, we could even do some exploring. She’d love that.
“Do you give consent?” the bot-alien asked.
Kat squeezed my hand and gave me a look. It was the same one she gave me when she didn’t want to go somewhere or do something. Or when we were stuck at a party and some random alien was chewing her ears off. It was the “Help, get me outta here” look.
Why wouldn’t she want to get out of the alien? She had to be sick of being stuck in there fighting with an alien. There was only one good reason she’d give me the help signal.
“Kat. What’s wrong?”
But she didn’t answer. She just furrowed her eyebrows and shrugged a little.
“Why aren’t you talking?”
Again she lifted her eyebrows.
I turned to the bot-alien. “Are you stopping her from talking?”
It didn’t respond.
“Look. I don’t know what’s going on here, but someone had better tell me something now if you want my consent for this ceremony.”
The bot-alien beeped and buzzed, and then finally spoke up. “The extraction ceremony will render the human invalid.”
“Invalid?”
“Correct.”
“You mean dead?”
It blinked. “Correct.”
That’s why she was giving me the look. And probably why they were doing whatever they could to keep her quiet about it. I still wasn’t sure if she was more powerful than them, but there were a lot of them outside of the ship. There was enough to put up a good fight, even if she was the strongest of the bunch.
Kat let out a breath of air. I guess whatever they were doing to keep her quiet didn’t matter anymore now that the cat (no pun intended) was out of the bag. “Thanks for remembering my look.” She smiled with relief.
“How could I ever forget?”
Now that I knew these aliens weren’t completely aboveboard, I needed to make sure to keep a closer watch. It was obvious they couldn’t be trusted.
“Will you comply?” it asked in its robo-alien voice.
“Comply? Or consent?”
The bot-alien hesitated. “…Consent.”
I decided they meant “comply” but because they couldn’t force me they had to ask for “consent.” For some reason Kat was making them ask for my permission. Either she was more powerful than they were, and they couldn’t force her to go, or maybe it was an alien custom where they had to have consent.
Logic dictated that it was the alien inside Kat who was stopping them, and not tradition. I was pretty sure plankton had zero rights.
This led me to believe they weren’t some super-benevolent society. Even us lowly humans had protocols to preserve life. Even plankton. These guys had no compunction about dissolving the entire ship in the blink of the eye. They might be advanced, but they weren’t big on the belief that all life is important.
“I’m not agreeing to let you kill my ex-girlfriend.”
Kat looked at me with surprise. “Ex-girlfriend?”
“Uh. Well you did go to save those dolphins and die and everything.”
She thought it over for a second. “Okay. I’ll give you the dead part. But if I wasn’t dead, I’m not sure we were broken up.”
“I figured you weren’t coming back either way. You’d just keep exploring and helping aliens all over the galaxy.”
“Maybe for a while, but I was coming back.”
“You were?”
“Wil. This is why I wished we talked more. You always assume too much. And you’re not always right—especially about people. You tend to think the worst. Like everyone’s going to leave you. I know it was tough with your dad, but that doesn’t mean you have to live like that forever.”
She was right, but the context for the conversation was off. Way off. This wasn’t the time or place for it. Not with aliens trying to extract her, and then probably kill me and Poka.
“Why are we suddenly having a deep relationship talk?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It just felt like the thing to do.”
I glared at the bot-alien. “Don’t try manipulating us.”
It beeped. “We are not manipulating, we are offering.”
“Offering?”
“Correct.”
“What are you offering?”
“The same environment as we did in your dream. Resolution. Closure. Joy. Finality.”
“You mean death,” I said.
The bot-alien hesitated before answering. It must have sensed that saying yes wasn’t going to lend support to its argument. But the truth was the truth, and there was no other human word for it. “Correct. Death. A blissful transition back into the universe.”
At least it tried to make it sound like killing us was poetic. “Sorry, no dice.”
“What are dice?”
Ugh. They really weren’t grasping the language thing. This was irritatingly similar to talking to the bot.
“Just no.”
“Then we have no alternative.”
“What do you mean no alternative?”
“We will wait.”
That didn’t sound so bad. “Wait for what?”
“For the Kat human to expire of its own accord. Then we will extract the remains.”
Okay, it was bad.
&n
bsp; “Human life spans are short,” the bot-alien said.
They weren’t short as far as I was concerned. And I wanted it to last every second possible. “So, you mean you’ll wait until she dies of old age?”
“Correct.”
That didn’t sound so bad. Except that she’s going to be stuck to an alien for the rest of her life. Not horrible, but not the best.
“You may live the remainder of your time on the ship, or on the planet surface if you so choose. We will modify it to support your existence.”
The way it said your, dripping with disdain, I was sure the bot had put its personal emphasis on that word. Regardless, it still didn’t sound so bad. They’d terra-morph the planet just for us? Not bad at all. Though it also sounded like living in a creepy human zoo, where they’d be watching and waiting for Kat to kick the bucket so they could extract her.
“Would you like to see the planet?” the bot-alien asked.
“You mean go down there?”
The bot-alien nodded.
I turned to Kat. “What do you think?”
She shrugged again. It was no help at all.
“Are they stopping you from talking again? If they are, I swear…”
“No. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Do you think it’s a trick to get us down there?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing.” I turned to the bot-alien. “No thanks to going down to the planet right now.”
“We cannot force you to do anything. Or hurt you in any way. The Ultra will not allow it.”
“The Ultra?”
“Correct.”
“What’s the Ultra?”
The bot-alien pointed to Kat.
I looked at her, and she shrugged again.
“That’s why they want you so bad. You’re not just any alien. You’re the Ultra.”
“Looks like,” she replied.
It all made sense now. If she was the Ultra of their species, it was no wonder they were treating Kat with such care. Also why they weren’t making any moves on me or Poka. The Ultra was important to them. Ultra-important.
It might also be ultra-powerful and the reason why they couldn’t just extract her. Of course, it could also be tradition or law. Who knew what the alien power structure was like? Whatever it was, there was one, and it looked like Kat was at the top of the heap.
“We have been searching for the Ultra since the beginning of the formation of Sector Three,” the bot-alien said. “We are grateful for the return. We will wait out your human life cycle and prepare the planet as a paradise for your enjoyment, until the day of extraction and the ceremony of unity.”
Paradise? That really didn’t sound so bad. Only I wasn’t sure if I could trust them.
“What do you think?” I asked Kat.
“My gut tells me they’re being honest.”
“Your gut?”
“The alien’s telling me in my gut.”
“It could be lying.”
“Could be. But why bother? It’s protecting me. And by extension, you. If it wanted to, it could just go with them and let them extract me, or whatever they do. Why would it be stopping them if it didn’t care about keeping us safe?”
“Good point. I just wish the damn thing could explain it better. Communicating via feelings sucks.”
“You’re telling me,” she replied.
“So what do we do? And don’t fraking shrug.”
She thought for a moment then said, “I say we go check it out. It would be pretty cool to see an alien paradise made just for us.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?”
The bot-alien beeped with glee. “You will consent?”
“To going to the planet. Not the extraction ceremony.”
The bot-alien clapped its hand appendages with joy. “Agreed.”
A moment later two purple spheres came through the walls of the ship and levitated in front of us.
“Step inside.”
The End
For the next book in the Omega Series click here.
For book 1 in the Omega series click here.
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