Terra's World

by Mitch Benn

  Billy tugged his earphones out and the girl repeated her question.

  ‘Is that William Gibson?’

  ‘Erm . . .’ (Say something, Billy, say something.) ‘Yes, er, Mona Lisa Overdrive.’

  ‘Cool!’ The girl smiled. ‘I’ve never read that one. Only Neuromancer.’

  Was this actually happening? Even if Billy was imagining things, he liked the things he was imagining. He decided to go on imagining them.

  ‘You can . . . borrow this if you want.’

  ‘Really?’ Wow. What a smile. I did that, thought Billy. I did that smile.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve read it four or five times already.’

  Billy handed her the book and the girl turned it over excitedly, reading the front and back covers. ‘He’s amazing, isn’t he? To think he was writing about all this stuff before anyone even had email. He saw so many things coming.’

  This was fast becoming Billy’s All-Time Number One Favourite Conversation. ‘He pushed his luck a bit with the whole everyone having a USB port in the back of their heads thing,’ he said with a smile, and the laugh this provoked from the girl made his insides go gooey. ‘I think that’s next,’ Billy continued, encouraged. ‘People are gonna get so lazy even touch screens will seem like too much effort. They won’t be happy till they can have the Internet injected straight into their brains.’ And there was the laugh again.

  The bell rang to announce the end of break and the start of late morning class. Billy had never resented a sound so violently in his life. He stood up.

  ‘That was . . . I have to, I mean we have – EVERYBODY has to—’

  She cut him off. He was so glad she cut him off.

  ‘I’m Tracey,’ she said.

  ‘Billy,’ said Billy, extending his hand for her to shake, a gesture which immediately struck him as so utterly lame that he was relieved when she ignored it and skipped away.

  Just as Tracey reached the door of the school building she turned and held up the book. ‘Thanks for this,’ she said, and was gone.

  * * *

  ‘What’s got you so happy?’ asked Lydia as they waited for the bus at the end of what, as far as she could tell, had been a fairly averagely Wednesdayish Wednesday.

  ‘Hm?’ said Billy, not listening, and just for once not listening to his earphones either.

  ‘That big dumb grin on your face,’ persisted Lydia. ‘What’s it in aid of ?’

  ‘Have you met a girl called Tracey?’ asked Billy.

  ‘I’ve met HUNDREDS of girls called Tracey. Be more specific,’ huffed Lydia.

  ‘Blonde. About our age. I think she’s new,’ Billy elaborated.

  ‘Pretty?’ asked Lydia, peering at him through her purple fringe.

  ‘I suppose . . .’

  Lydia hopped off the bus stop bench and stood right in front of him. ‘Pathetic,’ she spat. ‘If you think she’s pretty just SAY so.’

  ‘Okay,’ mumbled Billy, ‘she’s pretty.’

  ‘There,’ said Lydia, sitting back down. ‘Wasn’t so hard, was it?’

  ‘AND she’s into sci-fi,’ Billy said after a moment’s pause.

  ‘Really?’ A note of incredulity.

  ‘Yeah, really. Lent her one of me William Gibsons.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Mona Lisa Overdrive.’

  ‘Ha.’ Lydia snorted. ‘She reckons she’s into sci-fi and she’s never read Mona Lisa Overdrive?’

  ‘She’s read Neuromancer,’ protested Billy.

  ‘EVERYONE’s read Neuromancer. Your MUM’s read Neuromancer.’

  Billy burst out laughing. Lydia joined in. After a few seconds they fell silent, an awkward sort of silence such as there’d never been between them before.

  Lydia broke it. ‘Gonna ask her out, then?’

  ‘I might,’ said Billy. And he genuinely believed it was possible.

  1.3

  In the event, Billy didn’t have to ask Tracey out.

  He arrived at school on the Friday morning, having spent most of the Thursday contemplating how exactly to broach the subject with Tracey so as to minimise the humiliation when the inevitable rejection came.

  He was shuffling through the corridor, just running through one such scenario in his mind (‘No, that’s okay, it was just a thought, no, it’s fine, really’) when Tracey appeared in front of him, beaming. She held out his copy of Mona Lisa Overdrive.

  ‘Thank you so much, it’s amazing. I think it’s my favourite one of his,’ she said.

  Billy took the book. ‘That’s okay. If you want to borrow any other – what’s this?’

  There was a long strip of card wedged between the pages of the book. He opened it and the card fell out. He bent down to pick it up.

  It was a ticket. A ticket to the Cinéaste Society screening of Silent Running at the Picturedrome cinema the very next night. Billy stared at it in excited bewilderment.

  ‘It’s my way of saying thank you,’ said Tracey, a little bashfully. ‘You are free, aren’t you?’

  Of COURSE I’m free, thought Billy. ‘Well, I don’t have anything special on,’ said Billy. ‘Nothing I can’t get out of, certainly.’

  ‘That’s brilliant!’ said Tracey with an excited laugh. She reached into her pocket and produced a similar ticket, waving it happily. ‘Have you seen it? It’s my favourite movie ever.’

  ‘I have seen it, and it’s MY favourite movie ever.’ Billy smiled. Billy’s favourite movie ever was in fact Blade Runner (original 1982 theatrical cut), but he wasn’t about to bring that up now.

  ‘Fantastic, I’ll see you there,’ said Tracey, and skipped off in that delightful skipping-off way she had of skipping off.

  Billy stood, wordless and grinning, for what might have been five minutes.

  ‘You’re going to be late,’ said a voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘School,’ said Lydia. ‘You’re in school. It involves going to classes and stuff. Not just standing in a corridor with a big stupid smile on your face.’

  ‘She asked me out!’ said Billy, finally snapping out of his daze. ‘Tracey! She asked me!’

  ‘I know,’ muttered Lydia. ‘I was watching.’

  ‘Silent Running! Tomorrow night! The Picturedrome!’ Billy held up his ticket.

  ‘Hm,’ grunted Lydia.

  ‘Oh,’ said Billy as they walked towards their first class of the day, ‘did you want to go to see it as well? Cos, you know, you still could, I’m sure it’d be—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Lydia.

  1.4

  Billy sat in the dark with a beautiful, interesting girl, and the best thing was he didn’t have to say a thing.

  In some regards Silent Running was an even more upsetting film now than when it had come out in the early 1970s; they’d made a profound and heartfelt warning about the dangers of Earth’s ecosystem collapsing and all animal and plant life being destroyed. In the early 1970s. They hadn’t seen anything yet, Billy reflected.

  Silent Running was not the sort of movie which you watched to feel happy. But there in the dark with a beautiful, interesting girl, Billy was happier than he could ever remember being.

  It wasn’t just that Tracey had suggested Silent Running. It was that she really seemed to GET Silent Running. And anyone who ‘got’ Silent Running, Billy thought, had a chance of ‘getting’ him.

  She didn’t snuggle into him or hold his hand. He didn’t try to hold hers. But he was sure he heard a tearful sniff at ‘Take good care of the forest, Dewey’, and that was enough for him.

  The lights came up as Joan Baez sang, and Billy saw that there were indeed tears in Tracey’s eyes. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll get us some pizza.’

  They strolled out into the cold night. The city’s lights seemed brighter than Billy had ever noticed them bef
ore. They walked side by side, without speaking.

  ‘It always makes me cry, that movie,’ said Tracey.

  ‘Me too,’ said Billy without thinking, and instantly wished he could take it back. Cry? Really? He could have said it made him SAD, certainly, but cry?

  ‘Do you cry a lot at movies?’ asked Tracey.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Billy, thinking his best bet now was to make a joke out of the topic. ‘I wept buckets at the end of Dumb and Dumber.’

  Tracey laughed. Billy loved that laugh.

  A moment’s silence. They walked on.

  ‘So . . .’ said Tracey.

  ‘So . . . ?’ replied Billy.

  ‘You’re not . . .’ Tracey paused.

  ‘Not what?’

  Tracey looked away for a moment, then looked back at him. ‘You’re not going out with anyone at the moment, are you?’

  Billy gave an involuntary high-pitched yelp of laughter, and was immediately horrified at the sound he made. ‘No,’ he said in an unusually deep tone, ‘no, I’m not. Unless you include this.’ He gestured back and forth between Tracey and himself.

  ‘I see,’ said Tracey, maddeningly neither confirming nor denying whether she included this. ‘It’s just . . .’

  Billy couldn’t tell whether this was going to be the best or worst conversation of his young life. ‘Just what?’

  ‘Well,’ began Tracey, ‘everyone seems to think that you and Lydia are . . .’

  Billy gave the yelp of high-pitched laughter again, contemplated punching himself hard in the face, decided against it and replied, ‘What, me and Lydia? No, no way,’ in the deepest voice he could manage.

  ‘You’re just friends, then?’ Tracey smiled.

  ‘Hardly even that really,’ snorted Billy.

  ‘It’s just you spend so much time together. How long have you known her?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Billy, wondering quite how this evening had become about Lydia, ‘a year or so, since she started at the school.’

  ‘What school did she go to before?’

  ‘She’s never said. Never thought to ask. Where are we?’ Billy had only just noticed that they’d walked round the back of the cinema and were now standing in a dark alley. Had Tracey led them there or had he just wandered aimlessly with her following? It added to his unease. ‘Do we have to talk about Lydia?’ he asked, annoyed at how whiny he sounded.

  Tracey smiled, a smile Billy had dreamed about seeing on the face of a real live girl for as long as he could remember.

  ‘We don’t have to talk about anything,’ she said.

  She took his hand. Billy realised it was the first time he’d touched her. Her hand felt strangely cold and hard. It was a chilly night, thought Billy. Oh my, thought Billy, this is actually happening.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ said Tracey softly.

  Billy closed his eyes, parted his lips and waited.

  He felt Tracey’s other hand on the back of his head, the fingers – cold again – running through his hair. Then the fingers clamped hard on the back of his neck.

  ‘Ow! Tracey, not so—’

  The hand, surprisingly strong – impossibly strong, in fact – forced him to his knees. His excitement evaporated, replaced by confusion and fear.

  ‘What are you do—? Ahh!’

  The fingers tightened on his neck and he found he couldn’t speak any more. A cold metallic something was pushed against the back of his head. He winced and thrashed.

  ‘This will hurt a lot less if you keep still,’ said Tracey, her voice as cold as the metal object.

  The metal something now became warmer. It seemed to vibrate, and the vibrations passed through his skull and straight into his brain.

  Images began to run through his mind like a video being fast-scanned. His own life was flashing before him: his childhood, school, adolescence – even sped up, it was boring.

  Billy had the feeling of being drained, hollowed, emptied out.

  Billy felt that even if he had any idea how to fight against this, soon there wouldn’t be enough of him left to fight.

  Billy’s eyes struggled to focus. Tracey was behind him, holding him down. Someone else was there. Running towards him. He saw baggy jeans, a woolly hat, a purple fringe . . .

  Lydia was there, and she had something in her hand. Something shiny, spherical . . .

  There was a flash, a low whooshing sound, and the vibrations in his head stopped. His vision cleared. He staggered to his feet and looked around. Tracey lay unconscious on top of a pile of bin bags, a flat metal disc hanging from her limp fingers. Lydia stood brandishing the spherical object like the weapon it obviously was.

  ‘Y-you . . .’ he fought to get the words out.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Lydia, taking her rucksack off her shoulder and stuffing the sphere-thingy into it.

  ‘You shot her!’ said Billy at last.

  ‘Whatever it is, I seriously doubt it’s a her,’ said Lydia, pointing at the unconscious Tracey. Billy stared down. At first he thought his vision was failing again; Tracey seemed to blur and phase as he looked at her. Then Billy realised that Tracey actually WAS phasing and blurring. She distorted and fragmented like an interrupted digital TV picture . . . and then Tracey wasn’t there at all. What WAS there made Billy recoil so violently he fell over his own feet and landed in a sitting position.

  ‘What . . . what is it?’ he stammered.

  ‘Looks like a Craa, or possibly a Tastak. Some sort of highly evolved insectoid, anyway,’ said Lydia. She began to cover the black, glistening, segmented body with the bin bags. Billy struggled to maintain any sort of grip on proceedings, and his dinner.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ said Lydia, peering at her phone. It was the first sentiment that had made sense to Billy for quite a while. ‘Ah – there we go. Up there,’ said Lydia, looking up towards the roof of the cinema. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘it won’t stay unconscious for long.’

  Before Billy could protest, Lydia put her arm around his waist. She fiddled with something on her belt and they were enveloped in a sparkling field of energy. Billy felt a curious fluttering in his insides, as if he’d become weightless, and then suddenly he found that he was indeed weightless, and that he and Lydia were rising effortlessly into the air. He found his voice at last.

  ‘What’s going ON, Lydia?’

  ‘My name’s not Lydia,’ she said. ‘It’s Terra.’

  Few civilisations ever heard of the Jek-E-Lek people of the planet Kelejek, but many of those who did would come to envy them. Of all the worlds to encounter the Black Planet, their fate had been the most merciful. The Jek-E-Lek simply never knew what hit them.

  The Jek-E-Lek had never progressed beyond a pastoral, agriculture-based existence because they hadn’t needed to. The extraordinarily fertile soils and temperate climate of Kelejek provided everything they could want. They’d never industrialised, never developed their technology past simple devices required to till their fields and harvest their crops. They’d never considered the stars to be anything more than decorations in the night sky; they’d never attempted to escape the confines of their own world, or to communicate with any other world, because it had never occurred to them that there might be anything out there to communicate with.

  They’d had no means of detecting the Black Planet’s approach. When it appeared in the mist-shrouded night sky, no one even noticed a disc of pure darkness among the hazy stars. And when their warm orange sun rose the next morning, revealing the giant orb looming low over Kelejek’s silent, blackened surface, there was no one left alive to see it.

  1.5

  Lydia – who was not called Lydia, but Terra – and it was fairly obvious WHICH Terra – was examining a small oval pod-like object. She’d removed it from her belt and was prodding at a button on its surface.

  �
�Power cell’s dead,’ she muttered. ‘Amazing it lasted as long as it did. No way to charge it up here. Only used it on very special occasions.’

  ‘Huh,’ replied Billy.

  ‘The pod was calibrated for me back on Fnrr. Gravity’s about ten per cent stronger on Earth, and I’ve got heavier in the last two years, AND it was lifting you as well. No offence, but I’m surprised it got us all the way up here.’ She reattached the pod to her belt and took her phone from her rucksack.

  ‘Huh,’ said Billy.

  ‘Now,’ said Lydia who was Terra, ‘let’s see.’ She held up her phone and peered at it, wanding it around.

  Billy was sure he should say something but had no idea what. So many questions were stumbling over each other in the confined space of his mind that none could make its way to his mouth. He decided to pick one at random, a simple one, and start from there.

  ‘Where . . . where are we?’

  ‘We’re on the roof of the Picturedrome.’

  ‘How did we get up here?’

  ‘Gravity pod. Weren’t you listening?’ Lydia/Terra was still scanning the rooftop with her phone.

  ‘How. . . how did you know that Tracey was . . . that she wasn’t . . . real?’

  ‘Optical camouflage. I noticed a bit of phasing around her face the other day when it rained. That sort of technology doesn’t belong on this planet. So I knew she was an alien, and that meant she was here for me.’

  ‘For you?’

  ‘Yes. Not you. Sorry.’

  Terra had not noticed any phasing around Tracey’s face, nor did she have any idea if rain would cause optical camouflage to phase. Her suspicions had been aroused when the prettiest new girl in school had unaccountably found Billy irresistible, but she didn’t think that was anything Billy needed to hear at that moment.