Aliens, Tequila & Us: The complete series

by Michael Herman

  “I can see the two of them, my uncle stumbling down the mountain straining with his load, probably cursing her stupidity. I know he cared for her by the way he talked about her. He must have been extremely distraught when placing her carefully inside his car. Knowing him, he would have checked her vital signs and determined things were desperate. Torn between driving too fast and jostling her, versus rushing hell-bent to get her to a hospital, half mad with anxiety while driving her back to our house. His arrival at the ranch, finding her lifeless, must have killed him. He likely placed part of the blame for her demise on himself.

  “’I decided the authorities should not be notified.’”

  “What? Was he afraid they would blame him just like he was most likely blaming himself?

  “’I didn’t want to take a chance on them doing something stupid that would remove you from your grandmother or our family. It seemed like a better arrangement to continue what she began years ago, her sending you cards and letters from around the world. It was what you were used to. Life would go on unchanged.’”

  “’She understands,’ Soliloquy says in a dreamy voice.

  “Maybe Soliloquy’s imaginary mother understands, but I’m out to lunch on this. Am I too young to comprehend? My mom gives her a worried look but says nothing.

  “’Bob and I brought her here to this craft, thinking it would be the best resting place for her. It was her last wish.’”

  “And now my dad is a full partner to this craziness? What happened to the rock-solid parents I’ve known all my life, the ones who always had the better “adult solution” to life’s trials? These are not rational actions by rational people. And her last wish to take her to Gi? Who is Gi?”

  “’We never considered you discovering her like this. I’m so sorry for the lack of warning or preparation. It was never meant to be like this.’”

  “Soliloquy walks up to my uncle and gives him a kiss on the cheek. ‘You are forgiven, Theodore. Take care of her like you always have,’ she says, in what is unmistakably her mother’s voice, then she stiffens and, damned if she doesn’t start speaking in tongues like her mother did. When she stops, she turns to me and asks, ‘You understand?’

  “Incredibly, and I don’t mean this in any small way, I do understand. Every word of it I understand. They are the same words spoken to the church congregation by her mother the last day of her speaking in tongues. And, even more alarmingly, I understand just as Soliloquy did that day.

  “My mother was right. Things are getting freaky.”

  Messenger’s Soliloquy Chapter 8

  “We are so intent on Soliloquy that no one notices Forbes has disappeared from our little gathering until Twizzle asks, ‘Where’s Forbes?’ I look around, but he’s nowhere to be found.

  “My mom doesn’t seem alarmed, but says, ‘Follow me. I have a good guess where he’s wandered off to.’

  “’What about Soliloquy and her mom?’ Twizzle queries.

  “’Her mom isn’t going anywhere. I’ll make sure Soliloquy stays with us.’ She takes Soliloquy’s hand in hers and gently pulls her along as she directs us to follow her. She backtracks to the entry tube where we started, and then leads us in a new direction, through more tube-like corridors until we come to a large open volume with what appears to be a vast garden in the center. Forbes is crouched in the foliage, playing with things that look like butterflies that are floating around him. A couple are perched on his head and another rests on his palm.

  “’This is the incubator room,’ my mother informs us. ‘This is where we cull the orchids that eventually get placed in the tequila bottles. It’s a specialized growing environment.’”

  “The ceiling above the garden drips mist from whirling objects that look like small propellers. The garden is a rainbow of brilliantly colored orchids of different sizes and shapes.

  “’It’s beautiful,’ Twizzle remarks. ‘So the orchids we grow in the greenhouse are different from these?’

  “’No, we simply replant orchids from here to there to acclimate them to our environment. Once adjusted, we harvest and bottle them.’

  “’Why? For novelty?’

  “’No, the orchids add something special to the tequila, something you’ll understand very shortly, something the aliens that have destroyed our farm want to eliminate.’

  “Forbes speaks up from his spot in the garden. ‘They shall not!’

  “’No,’ my mother says, ‘They shall not. Forbes, you should go first to show your brother and sister and Soliloquy. Show them how it’s done.’

  “I have no idea what she’s talking about, and I can tell by the look Twizzle gives me that neither does she.

  “My dad leads Forbes over to an indention in the floor that contains a glowing puddle of the light creatures pooling inside it. As soon as Forbes stands among the light things, they migrate up his legs.

  “’No probeloney, abalones,’ he says triumphantly, flashing us a big smile like he’s done this a thousand times. Sometimes he’s just a broken record. This new catchphrase for everything is something he hopefully outgrows in the near future. Thank you very much, SpongeBob SquarePants.

  “Once he’s completely covered from head to toe, the light things balloon outward from his body, expanding until his shape is completely enclosed in a large glowing orb of glow lights. From the other side of the room, there is a small ‘boom’ followed by a chirruping, loud and throaty. Pushing out of the wall, a huge worm appears that is more than three times our height. Deep purplish-black rings march up its white body. As it wiggles and squirms loose from the wall, the white color quickly turns a radiant yellow. It rips completely loose from the wall with a loud suction noise and then flops down on the floor. Legs and a small shiny black head emerge on one end. At the other end, its tail starts writhing around, spinning silky white strands of ribbon around itself until it’s completely encased and hidden like larvae in a cocoon.

  “’What happened to Forbes? And...UGH, what is THAT thing?’ Twizzle asks, not bothering to conceal her disgust.

  “My mom explains, ’That is a Forbes avatar. It’s in transformation state right now. Very quickly it will metamorphose into a combat creature Forbes will completely control as if he were the creature itself. While Forbes is tucked safely within a cocoon of protection, his essence will be inside the creature directing its every move. Don’t be afraid of it because it is, essentially, Forbes you will be seeing, and he will see you.’

  “The cocoon lies still for a few minutes then...bump. There is movement inside. Another bump follows. Then another, then the thing inside begins to jostle and writhe. A tear appears in the cocoon skin and part of the new creature pops out. More splits occur with more tossing about until finally, the being inside breaks through the enclosure, ripping it apart and shaking it off. What crawls out is the ugliest largest yellow jacket wasp demon I have ever seen. My mom walks up to it and strokes its face.

  “’Say hello to everyone, Forbes.’

  “It stretches its wings and flutters them until, buzzing so fast, they blur. The wind created by the wings blows fan-like across the garden, rippling the foliage in waves.

  “’Very good, Forbes.’

  “Twizzle and I give each other wide-eyed looks. She is shaking her head and backing away. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No. I won’t.’

  “My mother raises her hand to the Forbes avatar and he stops buzzing his wings. ‘Come out and show your brother and sister, Forbes.’

  “The thing shakes its head.

  “’Forbes, I know it will be uncomfortable, but they need to know you are all right.’

  “When the Forbes avatar goes still and drops to its belly, my mom directs our attention to the globe that has enveloped Forbes. Slowly it becomes transparent. Inside we see Forbes.

  “’Forbes?’ I question him uncertainly.

  “He waves and smiles.

  “’He hears and sees you through the creature. He’s perfectly fine and protected inside there. If he were t
o be released from there, the creature would die, but he would be okay. Right now he’s linked almost directly to the creature as if he and it were the same. When the transparency ends, he is the creature for all intents and purposes.’ She waves to him and the globe surrounding him becomes opaque once more. As if on cue, the wasp demon rises and shakes its wings again.

  “’Forbes will be okay in there,’ I reaffirm hesitantly.

  “’The world is a far better place in there than out here. Far safer, too. That’s why we all need to do as he did. Twizzle, you go next. Bob, why don’t you and Twizzle do it together so you can guide her through any rough spots.’

  “Twizzle is still unsure. She backs away from my dad, who is holding out his hand for her.

  “My mom adjusts to the situation and changes her mind. ‘Ted, why don’t you go while I show Twizzle how the Forbes enclosure works?’

  “As she moves to the Forbes orb, my uncle positions himself in an indentation in the floor containing a pool of white light things. My mom leans her body against Forbes’ protective enclosure while my uncle is being enveloped in an orb of his own. She waves Twizzle over to her. Twizzle hesitates, then advances cautiously. My mom directs her to touch it. When Twizzle’s hand makes contact, she is surprised. ‘It’s solid, like metal, and it’s fizzy with static.’

  “’Nothing can penetrate it, Twizzle. While it surrounds him, he is perfectly safe.’ The Forbes wasp avatar chirrups in agreement. ‘It’s like a video game on steroids, Twizzle. Only instead of you being Wanda of the West or something like that, you are something far more real and powerful.’ The Forbes wasp makes a loud bark-roar.

  “’Will I be just like that?’ Twizzle asks, frowning and pointing to the Forbes thing.

  “’No, your avatar is determined by your genetic makeup. It will be perfectly suited to your personality.’

  “My uncle is now enclosed completely by a glowing orb. From the same wall that the Forbes worm came out of, another creepy worm thing is emerging, similar to the Forbes worm, but orange and bigger. It drops to the floor and spins a cocoon just as the other did.

  “’But why is this happening? Why do we need to do this? Can’t we just run away? Isn’t there someplace else we can go to and be safe?’ I ask.

  “My mother sighs and looks at me. ‘You don’t know, do you?’ I shake my head, ‘no.’

  “’Soliloquy?’ my mom asks.

  “‘They are pure evil,’ is her response that I’m guessing refers to the invading aliens.

  “She nods and then heads to the garden, waving for us to follow. She stops at the edge of the flowers and makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses the floor, ceiling, and walls. ‘The craft we’re in is a living, breathing, sentient being. It is global intelligence. Our name for it is Gi.’

  “’Zhee?’ I repeat her pronunciation of it. ‘Gi is what Soliloquy’s mom was talking about when she said Gi would have her?’

  “My mom addresses Soliloquy. ‘Your mother is the reason we bought the farm, Soliloquy. She was friends with the former owners and used to explore the caves on her own. She was a passionate spelunker. She was the first to discover Gi, but she kept it a secret and told no one. Then you were born and it changed her. She spent less time in the caves and more time with you. When the owners decided to sell, she talked Ted into buying the farm. Ted talked Bob and me into going in with him. Once we became owners, she told us about Gi, but when she tried to lead us to Gi, we discovered that the way had been blocked by a cave-in, and the tunnel to get there had collapsed. That necessitated Bob and Ted coming up with an alternate route, which is the way in with the rope bridge. Finding Gi was a stunning discovery, but once we understood Gi, we knew it was a secret not to be shared with the world.

  “’Your mother had become intimate with Gi by the time you were born. She delivered Gi-influenced plants around the world, ensuring they took root and spread. She brought them in contact with individuals crucial to human technological progress. Her beauty and charisma opened doors for her. No person or place was unobtainable for her. But the strain of serving Gi, and her closeness with Gi, took its toll on her and drove her to erratic behavior. We accommodated her often unexplainable actions while trying to keep her safe. In the end, there was only so much we could do and it wasn’t enough.’

  “’Why did she want to come back here?’ Twizzle wants to know.

  “’This was home for her. And we believe Gi and she still maintain their special relationship, even in death. Ordinary burial or cremation was not an option. She belongs here.’

  “’But why Gi? And what is Gi exactly?’ I ask.

  “’Gi is what links us to human global intelligence, a sort of mass mind, a crowdsource of sorts. If two heads are better than one, then imagine what millions of heads can accomplish. We all are linked through Gi and the life forms seeded by Gi eons ago. Homo sapiens advancement is channeled through Gi.’

  “She directs me to an orchid I’m unfamiliar with. ‘Messenger, put your nose to it and breathe deep. Tell us what you see.’

  “As a rule, orchids are not known for their fragrance so I wonder what I’ll smell. It turns out that this orchid is no exception. When I face her to say that I see just an orchid, I’m suddenly no longer inside Gi. Instead, I’m in one of our orchid greenhouses. From each orchid, a thin wiggly line of light emanates to the orchids immediately adjacent to it. The overall appearance is of a neural electrical net connecting all the orchids to each other. I see my mother working on one of the orchids. A neon blue-green sheen of what appears to be electricity surrounds her and is making contact with the orchid net. Forbes, who runs up to her, is covered in the same sort of blue-green sheen. They both speak and then turn to someone who is behind me. I turn and see myself talking to them. I have an orange sheen around my body that is not as bright as theirs.

  “I describe what I see to my mother and Twizzle and Soliloquy.

  “’What you see as a net of wiggly light is interconnectivity. The glow sheathing our bodies is our conduit to that. Your glow is probably different from Forbes’ and mine because he and I are biologically linked, but the color matters not. We are all part of nature’s internet. The species of orchids you see have been seeded on Earth by Gi. They allow Gi to prod and push and crowdsource humans as a group. It’s how Gi has advanced us technologically. Gi is the point of connection, a sort of mainframe for all of humanity. Gi gathers and then disseminates information among humans.

  “’Let me give you an example. Somewhere in time and place, a person, through observation and study, arrives at the conclusion that the world is round, not flat. In some other place, another person reaches the same conclusion. This happens again and again until eventually it is proved, accepted, and then new concepts are built on that. New development builds on past progress. Gi is part of how people are inspired. Gi gathers one person’s inspired revelation and spreads it throughout humanity where others on the verge are tipped over to the same revelation. From revelation comes scientific and technological advancement.

  “’Humanity has been around for a little over 2 million years. Gi has been here for almost half of that time. As we evolved, Gi evolved with us and watched and worked with us. Homo sapiens has been here for 200,000 years or so. We are Gi’s main focus right now. Our technological evolution and advancement are being constantly nudged along by Gi, with the help of the natural internet of connectivity that Gi seeded here on Earth. Currently, our advances are building at an exponential rate because of Gi. We have the ability. Gi crowdsources the inspiration and information.

  “’But why?’ I ask.

  “It’s God’s hand,” Soliloquy answers in her mother’s voice, which creeps me out and erodes my belief that one cannot be possessed. I want my Soliloquy back, not this person taken over by the spirit of her dead mother. “Please, please, pleeeeease,” I beg silently.

  “’Gi is here to save the Earth from another mass extinction. We are the grand experiment. The intelligence behind Gi predicted
a future extinction event, but Gi does not have the technological ability to stop it. Homo sapiens, as a species, must develop their own survival technology. We have little more than 100,000 years to achieve this. If we fail, we die off like the dinosaurs.’”

  Messenger’s Soliloquy Chapter 9

  “My father steps into an indentation half filled with the light things, and tells us we need to follow quickly.

  “My mom turns to Twizzle. ‘You’re still doubtful, aren’t you honey?’ She gives Twizzle an understanding smile. ‘You and I will enter avatar mode together, sharing a glowing orb, working side by side, and being in constant contact. Soliloquy and Messenger will follow.’

  “Twizzle considers the orbs around her and watches the latest avatar cocoon itself. She finally relents and says simply, ‘Okay.’

  “My mom gives her a motherly hug, tells her she made the right decision, and together they walk into a pool.

  “While they are being enclosed within an orb, Soliloquy says to me, ‘Messenger, look at me.’

  “When I face Soliloquy I see the shock of finding her dead mother is gone. No longer is she the possessed weird person I didn’t like much. Instead, I am relieved to find she is the old Soliloquy who told me I was the most important person in her life. My stomach flutters and I inhale deeply.

  “’Messenger, I refuse to lose you. We must do as your mother and Twizzle are doing, side by side, inside one of those glowing balls. Together. You and me. If we fail, we fail together. If we die, we die together.’

  “’We’re not going to die, Soliloquy. Our avatars may die, but we’ll be safe here.’

  “’Together, Messenger, together.’

  “I could never say ‘no’ to Soliloquy before, and now is no different. Of people I would want to share an orb with, Soliloquy is the only one who comes to mind. For me, it’s a union with nothing else left to be said. The essence has already been spoken. I am more than willing.